


To Run with the Wolf Pack When Your Legs Are Tired

by gloomboyz



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Victorian, F/M, Historical Inaccuracy, Historical References, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Religious Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-22 13:40:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 33,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13765326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloomboyz/pseuds/gloomboyz
Summary: Frank Iero is an orphan adopted by - and subsequently kicked out of - a rich, aristocratic, and very religious family. With no money and no family, he finds a way to make a name for himself through tutoring. Eventually, he's hired to tutor for Lord Way's two daughters, and there, he finds that there's more to life than a good book and a rosary.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi everyone here's my newest "masterpiece" (i use that word very lightly) but i've wanted to write a victorian au for the longest time and i was reading dracula in english class so i was like "you know what i'm gonna do it i'm gonna write it" so here that is hope u enjoy !!
> 
> (title is from the song “turn” by the wombats)

Frank receives the letter on a particularly rainy day in August.

He’d just finished a six-month-long tutoring job for a unknown, but well-paying family in the next town over, and is staying in one of the town’s many inns, spending the last of the meager earnings from the job on a room. Though he didn’t earn much, Frank often never received money from the families he tutored for and really only required food and a place to stay in trade for tutoring a family’s children. And, of course, as long as they didn’t look into his less-than-qualified history before hiring him. As long as a family was able to respect those wishes and provide, Frank would most likely teach them. Money was just a bonus, when he got it.

But otherwise, he’s content to live as a sort of nomad, as long as he can inspire and improve the lives of children.

The letter is unassuming when Frank sees it, but once he reads the return address written neatly at the top of the page, he swears he nearly feels faint. It appears to be from Michael Way, _Lord_ Way, the head of the Way family, one of the most prestigious and well-known families in the county. What Lord Way could _possibly_ want with Frank, of all people, he has no idea.

He carefully tears open the envelope, gentle not to break the wax sealing marked with the Way crest, and takes out the letter inside. The letter is even written on some of the nicest parchment Frank’s ever seen, and the writing isn’t decorated with ink blotches like Frank’s typically is, alluding to the sign of a good, quality pen being used.

Frank lets his eyes scan over it, then looks over it again. Once more, he reads it over, just to truly confirm the words he’s seeing. He puts the letter down, stares blankly at the wall across from him, then looks down and reads the letter just once more, completely shocked.

‘ _Mr. Iero,’_  The letter begins, ‘ _I want to start this letter simply. I’ve heard many wonderful stories of your work tutoring children, and I am honored to say that, from what I’ve heard, your work is rather awe-inspiring. I am the father to two young girls - Charlotte, my eldest, and Penelope, my youngest - and Lady Way and I have been in the process of looking for a new tutor for them. We’re glad to say we’ve reviewed several stories of your work, and have agreed that you are one of the best options for our girls in all of England. If you would have us, we would be honored for you to enter our home and work as a live-in tutor for our daughters.They’re very excited to meet you. Michael J. Way_ ’ It ends in a flourish.

Frank immediately rushes over to the feeble desk of the inn’s room, pulling out a quill and a well of ink to respond to the letter.

+++

_Frank snuck out of his room one day when he was 11, while his parents were out on business in the next town over, leaving Frank in the care of the manor’s many waitstaff. He was hardly ever allowed out in other parts of the manor, only for meals. He especially was never allowed in the East Wing, his mother giving him a stern warning of punishment if he was ever caught lurking there._

_But he disregarded the rule on that special day, and once he saw the carriage his parents were to travel to the town in depart, he dashed out of his room, his thin, little legs carrying him far. He breezed past passing maids, caretakers, and butlers, knowing exactly where he wanted to go. The library._

_Once arriving in the East Wing, he was more careful to sneak around as to not be seen. While the waitstaff was typically less harsh on Frank than his parents were, he knew they all knew what he was and was not supposed to do, and still feared someone would find him in the east wing and berate him, telling his parents of his misbehavior as soon as they arrived home. Luckily, Frank was stopped by no one as he made his way to the library, and as soon as he was behind the large, wooden double doors of the room he sighed and strolled in rather confidently._

_He had a private little collection of books in his own room - some of them from the orphanage, some that had been there when he arrived to the manor - but he barely knew how to read. There, though, in a library bigger than Frank thought possible, he was sure he could find at least_ one _book that would help him continue his path in learning how to properly read._

_He started in the first row he saw, skimming over the spines of the books and looking at their titles. Some of them had big words that he couldn’t comprehend, but he was able to get the general idea of what each book was to be about. And none of them seemed like they would help him much._

_“Frank? What are you doing in here?” he heard behind him, causing him to jump at least a foot into the air with surprise and fear. He spun around quickly, eyes wide and hands held up in a motion of surrender._

_But was just Jamia, he saw- one of the nicer maids. She always seemed especially kind to him, sneaking him extra pastries in the kitchen when his older brothers stole his at breakfast, or making sure to check on him at night when he had a nightmare. She seemed to want to help Frank as well, especially when events like his father snapping at him and giving him beatings in front of the entire household happened._

_“I was just looking I swear- please don’t tell mother and father,” he pleaded. He almost considered getting down on his knees and truly begging, if only it would help his case._

_And yet, Jamia just clicked her tongue and gave Frank a soft, sad look, crossing the library to wrap him in a hug. It was the first hug Frank had received in, well, maybe his whole life. He clung to her, soaking in the comfort he felt in that moment._

_“It’s alright, It’s alright,” she cooed when Frank began to sob into her apron, purely from the stress of the situation. “Don’t fret, babe, I won’t tell your parents.” Jamia’s tone was soft and almost completely lulled Frank into a completely calm state. He sniffled a few more times, before pulling away from her and wiping his nose on his sleeve._

_“I just wanted to find a book that would help me learn to read,” he said, his voice quiet and crackling._

_“Do you not know how to read?” Jamia asked. Frank shook his head._

_“I know some things, but I want to get better.”_

_Jamia reached down, brushing a stray lock of hair away from Frank’s face, unsticking it from his cheek where it had clung with dried tears._

_“Then I shall make it my personal duty to make sure you’re the most excellent reader in all of the lord’s land,” she settled on, smiling down warmly at Frank when he looked up at her, disbelieving._

_“Really?”_

_Jamia nodded, putting a hand on Frank’s shoulder. “Of course. I’ll pick out a book I think will be suitable for your learning and tonight I shall help you read it. Good?”_

_“Good,” he responded. Jamia patted his shoulder gently, before pushing at it lightly._

_“Now get out of here before someone catches you in this part of the house,” she scolded playfully, and Frank wasted no time in running from the room, making his way from the east wing to see if he could snag a biscuit or two from the kitchen._

_Later that night, after Frank was sent from dinner straight up to his room, he fretfully hopped onto his bed, pressing his face into the mattress. He wasn’t going to cry, not again, but before he could help it, tears were streaming from his eyes. If his brothers, or even his parents, saw him crying twice in one day like a baby, he’d be beaten for sure._

_A light tapping noise echoed from his door, and it creaked open to reveal Jamia holding a large, leather-bound book, barely giving Frank time to collect himself. He sat up quickly, moving over to make room for Jamia on the bed._

_“This is one of my favorites, Frankie.” she smiled, seemingly either not noticing or not commenting on Frank’s red, puffy eyes and tear-stained cheeks._

_“What is it?” he asked, sniffling._

_“A book of fairy tales,” she sighed wistfully. Frank could hardly bite back the groan of displeasure he felt bubbling up inside of him._

_“Aren’t fairytales for girls, Jamia?” he clarified. But Jamia just shook her head, turning the book open to a page marked by a long, red ribbon._

_“Fairytales are for anyone who wants to read them. Now, would you like to help me read the story of The Buried Moon?”_

+++

As the carriage pulls up to Way Manor roughly a fortnight later, Frank feels his heart leap into his throat, and he knows it’s not just from the jostling caused by the horses pulling the carriage along. It’s a big estate, massive even. Made of grey stone, the mansion is surrounded, and even shrouded by, all sorts of plant life. Trees line the pathway up to the house, and when they pull to the front, Frank can see a well kept garden surrounding the wide steps of the entrance, and ivy vines climbing up the walls of the house.

Frank doesn’t think he’s ever been hired to tutor for such a well known or truly rich and high-society family, and he can’t deny the nerves he feels when the carriage pulls to a stop and he steps out. He knows proper etiquette, of course he does, he’s been trained in it his whole life, but part of him fears he’ll suddenly forget everything he’s learned about etiquette, and trip and fall on his way up the stairs or something of the sort.

Luckily, he does manage to make it up the steps without tripping or falling or anything of the sort, and simply pushes his way into the unlocked house when he notices no maids or butlers at the door for him. He finds it a little odd, but doesn’t think much of it. Especially not when he actually enters the manor and maids, butlers, and chefs are running all over the place, rushed chatter filling the main hall. Frank simply stands by the entrance, watching everyone move around hurriedly, not paying attention to him in the slightest.

But finally, a maid stops in front of him, a tray piled high with flowers in her hands.

“What’re you standin’ around for, aye?” she asks, her accent heavy.

“I-I’m the new tutor?” Frank says, not sure of what else to say. A look of realization dawns on the maid’s face, and she grabs Frank’s arm suddenly, tugging him through the people running this way and that. Frank barely has time to protest before she’s dragging him through hallways which grow more and more vacant the farther from the entrance they go.

Finally, they stop in front of a wide set of double doors, and the maid pushes one of them open with her free hand, light flooding through the door from the large windows in the room.

“Mr. Way! The new tutor’s ‘ere!” she says cheerily as she walks in, and it’s then that Frank sees a man hunched over meticulously at a large, ornate wooden desk in the back of the room. He looks up, adjusting his glasses as he does. Suddenly, Lord Way looks much less regal than Frank had pictured.

He seems no older than Frank himself, and when he stands up from his desk he’s tall and gangly, not lordly at all. But Frank still bows politely and shakes his hand when it’s offered, acting like the strangeness of simply being in the house in such a chaotic state, with a man seemingly not fit for lordom running it all, doesn’t affect him in the slightest.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lord Way,” Frank says, but Lord Way just shakes his head and gives Frank a ghost of a smile, gesturing for the maid to leave them in peace.

“Please, Mr. Iero, call me Michael. I feel formalities are just too bothersome, yes?” he says kindly. It takes Frank aback, but no more than the whole situation has.

“Well, in that case, call me Frank then,” he responds. He doesn’t quite know where the boundaries between him and Lord Way - Michael - lie; Frank doesn’t know what’s too polite, too formal, and what’s too informal. He doesn’t want to _offend_ Michael, of course, but he doesn’t seem to be the traditional lord in any sense of the word, so Frank figures he can get away with some things that he probably wouldn’t be able to get away with other lords. Michael nods, and walks forward, pulling open the doors and walking out, gesturing for Frank to follow him so as he can give Frank a sort of informal tour of the manor.

Nearly all the halls are filled with paintings, Frank notices as they walk- the walls are either adorned with paintings, or if they’re not, it’s because there’s windows. It’s entirely possible that Michael just happens to like art, but when Frank looks back up at him, he doesn’t seem like the type. Maybe it’s Lady Way that’s the artist, Frank theorizes. He supposes he’ll have time to ask.

“I’m sorry about all the commotion,” Michael says after he shows Frank where the main dining hall is. “I fear we’re in a bit of a rush to set up the ballroom for the upcoming party.”

“Party?” Frank asks, tucking his hands behind his back.

Michael nods curtly, but Frank can see the joy on his face. He can already tell that Michael really isn’t a man of many emotions. Or rather, he’s just not very good at expressing them. “Yes, you’ve really come at a wonderful time. It’s my eldest’s birthday in two days. We’ve been in a bit of a rush to complete the finishing touches and whatnot to her party.” he gestures with a hand, and stops in front of a painting, Frank stopping beside him and looking up at it. It seems to be a portrait of Michael and his family; Lady Way standing next to him with an arm looped in his, and two girls in front of them- the taller one Frank presumes to be Charlotte, the older sister, and the small, smiling girl being Penelope.

“Charlotte, right? How old is she turning?”

“12. But really, she acts as if though she’s a teenager. Took after myself in that regard, I suppose.”

Frank hums and nods. He’d never been the most mature of children, but sometimes, he felt as though he’d been forced to grow up too quickly. Thinking about those sorts of things, though, always seems to lead him down a dark path of thought. He shakes his head, and continues on walking with Michael.

Right before they leave the hallway, Frank notices a rather small portrait next to the one of the Way family. It’s of a strange man, with strange, messy hair and meticulously incorrect buttons on his waistcoat that aren’t in their correct holes. But he’s smiling in the portrait, a row full of small teeth looking like little pearls, which is even stranger for a portrait. Most people choose not to smile, Frank knows, because the process of painting a portrait can take days, and no one wants to repose a smile each day of work for that long. Looking at the strange, strange man gives Frank a shiver down his spine.

They move on quickly to the west wing of the manor, where Michael informs Frank that his room, along with the girls’ rooms, the children’s library, and the classroom where Frank shall teach will all be, and when Michael opens the door to what is to be Frank’s room, it’s already leagues nicer than a majority of the rooms Frank’s lodged in in his teaching career, possibly even nicer than any room he’s ever lived in period. Michael leaves him to it, saying that the same maid from earlier shall fetch him in time for dinner and to meet Lady Way and the girls, saying it like Frank is expected to dine with the Ways. Which, after all of the strangeness of Michael himself and the manor, Frank doesn’t doubt to be true. The idea makes him a bit uncomfortable, but he doesn’t let it show, considering it rude to even let Michael know that all the strangeness of the manor makes him uncomfortable at all.

Frank’s two trunks are already in the room, and he takes the liberty of lugging the one filled with teaching supplies down the hall to where Michael had said the classroom was. It’s a nice room, all things considered- a large, black chalkboard lines the back wall and there’s already a desk for Frank and two for the girls set up, so Frank simply heaves his chest up, and puts it on his desk, intending to unpack before tomorrow morning. Or maybe just before tomorrow’s lesson. Whatever occurs, he supposes. A part of him is fairly sure it will be the latter option, though. He tries his best to be punctual, but it doesn’t always work.

He makes his way back to his room and begins unpacking his trunk, putting his measly belongings in their proper places. The large wardrobe looks barren with Frank’s two vests and one full-piece suit, but they’re truthfully all the clothes he needs in there, anyway, so he swings the doors of the wardrobe closed and continues unpacking.

Some time later, a knock echoes on the door and before Frank can respond to it, the door swings open and reveals the maid from earlier, smiling at Frank brightly with her hands on her hips.

“Get a move on, Mr. Iero,” she says, only butchering his last name just the slightest bit. “Mr. Way left it up t’ me t’ make sure ‘ye get t’ see the rest o’ the ‘ouse proper, ‘n t’ show ‘ye down t’ supper when the time comes.”

Frank tucks away the last shirt in the chest of drawers and closes it, straightening up and brushing down his waistcoat, as if to make sure there aren’t any wrinkles. He nods at the maid and follows her out of the room.

They go down the same hallway Michael had taken him down, passing the portrait of the strange man once more. Frank doesn’t look at it. Instead, he listens raptly as the maid tells the entire story of each hallway and each room and each portrait lining said hallway, explaining that her family had taken care of the Ways for as long as anyone in her family could remember.

“Excuse me if this is rude for asking, but,” Frank interrupts her during a story about a painting of some field, “What is your name, exactly?”

She smacks a hand to her forehead suddenly, stopping in the middle of the hall, and muttering, “Blimey” under her breath. She turns to look at Frank, shaking her head and laughing. “Jennifer Dunn, but that’s Kitty to you, ya’ hear?” she says.

Frank nods his head. He doesn’t ask why she wants him to call her Kitty, or if anyone else calls her Kitty, just keeps walking down the hall with her. “Well, then I’d appreciate if you called me Frank instead of Mr. Iero.”

“Don’t like formalities much, aye?” she inquires. Frank shrugs, not providing a proper response.

They make their way back to the main dining hall after Kitty shows him a few more rooms and sections he hadn’t seen when Michael had shown him around, and Frank feels a pit form in his stomach. He’s incredibly nervous, as per usual. He’s never gotten very good at the first meetings of the families he is to teach, and even more so now that he’s going to be meeting the rest of such a well respected family. Michael had been rather intimidating enough, and Frank doesn’t think he’ll be able to handle meeting Lady Way as well so suddenly. Or the girls. _Lord have mercy_.

Kitty pushes the doors of the dining room open and immediately Frank is hit with a warm, divine-smelling scent. He hadn’t realized how _starving_ he’d been, skipping lunch in favor for catching the carriage being sent to him from Way Manor earlier in the day, and for a brief moment his hunger cancels out his anxiety. But then the anxiety returns when he sees Lady Way standing up from the table, crossing the room to greet him. Kitty actually has to _push_ him forward just to get him to move.

“Oh, you must be Mr. Iero,” Lady Way says sweetly as she approaches him. Her dark hair is unfurled in loose waves, and she’s dressed in a rather informal, loose-fitting frock. And suddenly, Frank feels a little more in his element.

“Please,” he says, bowing down out of respect. “Call me Frank.”

Lady Way nods and keeps grinning, curtsying. “Then you shall call me Alicia, don’t think I don’t already know what you’re thinking. ‘Lady Way’ this and ‘Lady Way’ that,” she laughs. “We Ways are rather informal, you’ll be happy to know.”

Frank settles on a nod as a response and lets Alicia show him to a spot at the table. Michael enters but a few moments later and takes a seat at the head of the table, while Alicia takes to the other side and sits back in her seat. Michael gives Frank a curt nod when he notices him, Frank doing the same.

“So Frank,” Alicia asks, “What are you going to teach our girls for their first day with you tomorrow?”

Frank gulps, thinking of a response, something that won’t allude to the fact that he truly has no plan at all. It’s typically not like him not to have a plan, especially in such a situation, but the whole process of getting Frank to Way Manor had been rushed at best, and he hadn’t been given adequate time to look over the Way daughters’ old tutor's notes on their past lessons. He’d planned to do it later that night.

“I figured we’d start out with basic arithmetic as a review, then based on how they fair with that we could move onto a history lesson, or some English. I’m typically not one for such structured lesson plans, I like to see how my students react to the lesson as it unfurls,” he lies, trying to not make the lie look obvious on his face. But both Alicia and Michael seem to buy it, both complimenting him on such a way of teaching. The idea of being complimented on it _is_ rather nice, even if Frank’s sure that he’d never be able to _actually_ do such a thing. His anxiety always gets the best of him, he doesn’t think he’d ever be able to be such a spur-of-the-moment teacher. But again, Michael and Alicia don’t need to know that.

“Well, all’s I can say is that I wish you the best of luck with getting Poppy to sit down and practice arithmetic,” Michael mumbles, cutting into his food.

“Poppy?” Frank questions. He’s just a bit too on edge to even touch his food, no matter how hungry he is.

“Oh, you didn’t tell him did you, Michael?” Alicia scolds from across the table. Michael shrugs.

“I didn’t think it was necessarily important information.”

Alicia clicks her tongue and rolls her eyes at her husband, taking a sip of her wine before turning to look at Frank.

“Penelope is notorious for giving nearly everyone a nickname, even _herself_. I’m sure by the end of the week you’ll already have yours,” she laughs. “But don’t be afraid to ask about what exactly the nicknames mean and who is who, because everyone is just as clueless about them when they first get here, too.”

Frank nods, taking in the information. It is rather cute to think about. He wonders what his nickname will be as he finally starts eating.

Suddenly, the doors of the room burst open, and in rushes Poppy, Charlotte trailing behind. Poppy dashes to her seat, immediately digging into her food, but not before her parents _and_ her sister scold her for such recklessness. Frank watches the whole scene with great interest.

Poppy’s already halfway finished her plate when she notices Frank sitting across from her, and Frank gives her a small wave when she looks up at him.

“Are you our new tutor?” she asks through a mouth full of food.

“Chew and swallow before you speak, Poppy,” Alicia scolds. Poppy chews a bit more, swallows, and restates her question again.

“Yes, that would be me.” Frank smiles at her.

“I’m Lottie, and that’s Poppy, my baby sister,” Charlotte - or Lottie, Frank supposes - introduces, only to earn a scowl from Poppy.

“I’m not a baby,” she mutters, only to shove more food hungrily into her mouth. How such a small girl can consume so much food, Frank has no idea.

“Hello. I’m Frank Iero,” he says. Lottie nods in understanding, picking at her food, while Poppy glances at him curiously.

“Your last name sounds hard to say. Can I call you Mr. Frank?” she asks. Frank blinks, but only for a moment, before he nods. He supposes that’s his nickname, then, that he’s already received it. It could be worse.

“I don’t see why not.”

Poppy nods, and clears her plate.

“Mama, Papa, may I be excused?” she asks. Michael nods, while Alicia sighs and waves her hand. Poppy leaps out of her chair, dashing from the room almost as quickly as she’d come in.

“Don’t think I don’t see the mud on your dress, young lady!” Alicia calls out after her, but Poppy is already out of earshot. Alicia turns back to Frank, looking at him solemnly.

“I’m warning you now, she can be quite the handful,” she breathes, to which Frank shrugs.

“That’s quite alright. I’m sure I can manage her,” he reasons.

An awkward silence falls over the table, and Frank, for the first time during the meal, realizes how awkward the whole situation is. Usually, Frank doesn’t eat meals with the families he’s staying with, especially when they’re richer families. He’s typically expected to either eat in his own room, or at the small table located in most of the homes’ kitchens. He’s not used to this situation at all.

Even Lottie is quiet, which Frank notes is quite unusual for a child her age. She _should_ typically be acting more like, well, more like Poppy, but she just quietly picks at her food and sips at her water. Frank chalks it up to her mature nature that her father had been talking about earlier.

Eventually though, Frank and Michael delve into a conversation about music, finding that each of them are actually quite interested in the pastime, and Alicia adds when she can. The feeling in the room goes from awkward to utterly natural in under a few seconds, and it shocks Frank, to say the least.

After finishing his meal and saying goodbye to the rest of the family, promising to see Lottie the next morning sharply at 8 am, he retires to his room, following the path he’d tried his best to memorize with both Michael and Kitty’s directions. He passes the painting of the strange man again, and now that he’s alone, he takes an extra few seconds to stare at it.

A familiar shiver goes down his spine, and the feeling hits Frank like a ton of bricks. He rushes immediately back to his room, accidentally bumping into a butler on his way there.

And later that night, just before he’s about to go to bed, he prays the wooden rosary from his childhood two more times than normal.

+++

_Frank heard his mother coming to his room before she actually got there. “Frank!” she shouted down the hall, her footsteps echoing loudly throughout the hallway, possibly throughout the whole house. Frank had no doubts his brothers were all listening in on their mother’s anger from behind their closed doors._

_His door swung open and he jumped despite expecting the slam that echoed throughout his room. His mother’s angry face was the first thing he saw when he turned to look at her. He gulped._

_“Mother?” he asked softly. Her glare on him did not waver, and she advanced forward, clutching something in her hand tightly. Her knuckles were white._

_“Would you care to tell me why I found your rosary in the kitchens?” she inquired, tone seething. It was then that Frank saw that the object in her hand was in fact his rosary. He must have dropped it at breakfast. How he’d not noticed it was gone at morning bible class, he didn’t know. But now, he wished he’d noticed._

_“I-I forgot it. I’m sorry,” he apologized. He couldn’t bring himself to look at his mother, knowing he’d let her down. But he was sure she’d make him look at her soon enough anyway._

_“Sorry isn’t enough, Frank. You know the rule.” ‘Keep your rosary on you at all times’. Frank knew the rule quite well. It’d been drilled into him since he’d first arrived at the manor. His mother grabbed him by his chin, forcing him to look up at her stern face. Frank let out a whimper._

_“Stand up,” she demanded. She didn’t give him much of an option, though, not when she yanked him up anyway. She turned him around, forcing him to bend over and kneel over his bed. She crossed the room and unlocked the locked drawer of Frank’s dresser, where she kept a paddle for situations like this, just like the paddles kept in each of the boys’ rooms._

_Before the blows even came down upon Frank he was crying. He’d been spanked enough to know how much it truly did hurt, how it never really got any better._

_The paddle swung down, and Frank screamed particularly loud. In response, his mother simply hit him even harder._

_After what seemed like an endless stream of ambush, his mother stopped and slowly walked back across the room, locking the paddle back in the drawer meticulously. When she walked back up over to the bed, she scooped Frank up in her arms, brushing away tears from his reddened face, and hushing him._

_Frank wanted to rebel from her touch, to yell at her, to tell her how much he hurt, but he didn’t. He simply deflated in his mother’s arms, too tired to do much else. No matter how afraid he was of her, how angry he was at her, it still felt somewhat nice to be in her embrace. He just hoped Jamia would stop by later and hold him, making him forget the eventual guilt he would feel over cuddling up to his mother so willingly after she beat him. Jamia always made him feel better, especially when they read fairy tales together. Jamia was far nicer than Frank’s mother._

“‘When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word,’” _his mother began to sing gently._ “‘What a glory He sheds on our way! While we do His good will, He abides with us still, and with all who will trust and obey.’”

“‘Trust and obey, for there’s no other way,’” _Frank joined in at the chorus. His mother started rocking him back and forth in response._ “‘To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey,’” _they sang in tandem. His mother hummed the rest of the hymn, lulling Frank into a restless sleep._

+++

Frank is up before anyone else in the manor the next morning. He’s even even up before the sun. His eyes feel heavy and sleepy, but he’d been too anxious to sleep any longer. He did have things to do, like, of course, writing an actual comprehensive lesson plan.

But before he does, he makes his way to the kitchen, only having to ask one of the only maids passing by where exactly it is. But still, she kindly shows him it and giggles merrily when he thanks her. For a moment, he wonders if there’s any policies about staff having romantic relations with each other. After all, she was quite pretty.

Despite the early hour, the kitchen is rather bustling. Frank tries to stay out of the way, all the while hunting for a small breakfast. He never could quite handle a large breakfast, anyway. But no one seems to pay Frank any mind, so he has to stop a cook that’s kneading a lump of dough.

“Excuse me,” he interrupts her, “Is there a pantry of some sort?”

She looks up at him questioningly, before she seemingly realizes who he is and brushes a stray curl out of her face, back into the rather-impressive bun on her head. She nods, smiling at Frank with gapped teeth.

“Of course! Here, come, let me show you,” she says, brushing the flour from her hands onto her apron, walking around the counter she’d been working at. She leads him through the throng of cooks preparing breakfast for Way Manor, back to a large, metal door. “‘M not sure what you’re lookin’ for in there, Mr. Iero, but I hope you find it. Call for Chantal if you need anythin’!” she says brightly before walking away, leaving Frank to look for a tin of biscuits or something of sort and to wonder how quickly news of his arrival has spread around the manor. He digs through it, sorting through jars of dried fruits and vegetables, bags of flour, and other kitchen ingredients, and eventually comes across some breakfast biscuits. He only eats a few, not wanting to be greedy with food that truly isn’t his, and puts the tin back, making his way through the hectic kitchen.

“You find somethin’?” Chantal stops him as he walks out. Frank nods to her, thanking her.

“Yes, thank you,” he says gratefully.

“Aren’t you going to eat breakfast with the family?”

“No, I don’t typically do large breakfasts. Plus, I have to figure out a lesson plan for the girls later,” he excuses. Chantal looks at him critically for a few moments, studying his expression with knowing eyes.

“Aye, I get it. No one here seems to feel comfortable eatin’ with the family either, no matter how many times Lady Way tries to get us. Don’t feel bad about it,” she laughs, like she can read Frank’s mind. Or perhaps he truly is that transparent.

“Oh, I-I,” he stammers.

“Don’t worry, I get it. Just don’t feel right, huh?” she puts a hand onto her hip, smiling at Frank despite his obvious awkwardness.

“It does feel a bit weird, yes,” he agrees.

“Well, if you ever want to dine with company, we have dinner down here each night after the family,” Chantal says kindly, going back to kneading her dough. Frank nods in agreement, leaving the kitchen and making his way back to the classroom.

The sun peeks through the tall windows in the classroom, and Frank spends an extra moment just admiring the sunrise. He almost feels his lack of sleep catch up to him for a moment as he leans against his desk, but pinches himself when he starts to notice his eyes droop and his posture slouch. He has plenty of things to do before the girls arrive, so he shuffles through the piles of papers on his desk, looking for the note sent to Frank by their old tutor outlining their old lesson plan.

After reviewing the plan and gaining practically nothing from it - it hadn’t been exactly well-written, per se - Frank makes a half hearted attempt at actually writing a lesson plan for the day. He notices the shake in his hands as he does, making his letters messy and full of ink blots. Frank feels a terrible sense of nerves bubble up inside of him, stronger than he’s ever experienced for any family. He’s still terrified of messing all of this up, whether that be in the form of teaching the girls in a way that doesn’t please, or even offends, Lord and Lady Way, or in simply behaving in a way that displeases the Ways. Despite his anxieties about how to manage and act around a high-society family, he can already tell that this might just be the best job he’s ever had. He doesn’t want to lose it in a mere matter of moments. He picks up a piece of chalk and begins writing a shortened version of the lesson plan on the board, the scratchy sounds of the chalk more or less comforting. Soon after, a knock echoes on the door.

Frank is barely given a second to finish writing and say, “Come in!” before Poppy is barreling into the room and throwing her arms around Frank’s waist, Lottie walking in behind her sister and sitting down calmly at her seat. Frank lets out a surprised noise, but collects himself and pats Poppy lightly on the back. She looks up at him then, hazel eyes wide and remorseful.

“I’m sorry for being rude at dinner last night, Mr. Frank. I should have been more polite to you,” she apologizes. Frank almost gives her a pitying look, if not only for the look she’s giving him, but holds it back in favor of a warm, forgiving smile.

“It’s quite alright, Poppy,” he says to her. “You’ve learned your lesson. Just be more polite to newcomers in the future.”

She gives him a short, determined nod, before detaching herself from his waist as fast as she had attached herself, and sits down next to Lottie. Once the both of them are settled, Frank stands at the front of the room and tries to give the girls the most genuine, non-nervous smile he can.

“Well, I suppose introductions are not needed since we all know each other, so let's dive right in, shall we?” Both girls nod in response. “Good. Now, which one of you can tell me what your last tutor had been teaching you before I came?” Frank asks, trying to figure out the answer from the girls, sinc the letter didn’t particularly have a concise answer.

“Dragons!” Poppy shouts, shooting up in her seat.

“Raise your hand next time,” Frank instructs in response. Poppy shoots him an annoyed glare, before slumping back down in her seat.

“We weren’t learning about _dragons_ ,” Lottie says haughtily, not raising her hand either. “We were learning Latin grammar.”

Frank gives an approving hum at the words. He’s always loved Latin, and teaching it was always especially fun as well. Meanwhile, though, Poppy just lets out a dejected groan.

“I positively _loathe_ Latin,” she sighs, resting her chin in her propped up hand.

Frank marvels at her rather sophisticated word choice, and hums in consideration.

“I’ll tell you what,” he says, gaining the rapt attention of both girls in an instant. “If we can successfully practice Latin grammar for the next hour, we can learn about dragons afterwards,” he decides.

Poppy lights up indefinitely, letting out an excited gasp. She claps her hands together and bounces in her seat. Lottie doesn’t look nearly excited, but Frank doesn’t miss the happy grin that flashes on her face, if only for a moment. It’s enough for him to go over and look for his Latin book and the large, leather-bound book of fairy tales from his teaching chest.

+++

Poppy huffs, trotting into the room the next day. Being Lottie’s birthday, she’d been given a special pardon from her parents to miss her lessons in favor of her getting to sleep in late and having her mother doting on her nearly all day, getting her ready for her party that evening. Poppy, though, hadn’t been as lucky, and it shows on her face when she walks into the classroom.

“Good morning, Poppy,” Frank still says merrily, despite the grumpy look on the girl’s face.

“Why does _Lottie_ get to miss lessons and I don’t?” she stresses, letting her head fall onto her desk. She can’t see it, but Frank gives her a sad, pitying look. He walks over to her desk and crouches down in front of it. He knows what it feels like to be the sibling that no one pays attention to, even if Poppy is feeling it on a much lesser scale than Frank had when he was young.

“It’s her birthday,” he tries to reason. Poppy just groans louder.

“But that’s no fair! Why can’t you get Mama and Papa to cancel my lessons too?”

Frank purses his lips and furrows his eyebrows more. She might not have a good reason for all the pouting, but he still can’t help but feel bad for Poppy.

“I can’t tell them what to do, even about this. They’re still my employers, you know,” he says. Poppy glances up from behind her arm, her eyes still frustrated, if only less so. “But I’m sure I can make this fun for you.”

Her eyebrows furrow, and she gives him a suspicious look. “What do you propose?”

“Oh, you know,” he shrugs nonchalantly, smiling at Poppy. “We could always have lessons outside today. It does look quite lovely out.”

Poppy’s head slowly raises from her arms, a wide, blinding grin growing on her face. Her chubby cheeks are pink with happiness.

“Really?” she breathes, disbelieving.

Frank nods and leans in. “Really.”

She hops up from her desk and grabs Frank by the wrist, pulling him up as well. He laughs as she tugs him to the door, just barely laughing out pleas for her to stop.

“I have to get actual _materials_ if we are to have a lesson,” he says. Poppy lets go of his wrist and frowns, but obediently waits by the door while he goes to his desk and collects all the books and utensils that will be necessary for today’s lesson.

After he’s done collecting the necessary materials, Poppy drags him through waitstaff and arriving guests until they’re outside, using some back entrance that Frank figures is only for house staff. He doesn’t ask Poppy how she knows such a door exists, just goes along with her as she jubilantly pulls him along. They walk through the Ways’ seemingly endless land full of all sorts of flora, until they reach an outermost garden, lush and full of plants that Frank didn’t know were even native to England. It’s breathtaking, really, but Frank doesn’t allow himself the time to look around, not with much more pressing matters at hand. He can always come and find the garden again on a day off.

Instead, he follows Poppy to the back of the garden, where a large, ancient-looking willow tree sits, the tendrils of its branches swaying ever so gently in the surprising coolness of the August air. She plops down under it happily, no doubt dirtying her dress. But Frank doesn’t scold her for it, already knowing that she’ll get an earful of it from her mother later.

Instead, he pulls out an arithmetic book and a chalkboard tablet for Poppy to write on, immediately going into problems for her to copy down and complete.

It’s a few hours and many different lessons - ranging from arithmetic to history and everything in between - later, when Frank decides the both of them are due for a break. He lets Poppy loose, smiling as he watches her run around the gardens, trying to catch a butterfly. Frank can’t help but be charmed by Poppy despite knowing her for only a couple days; she does have a very charming personality, after all. Once you get past the rambunctiousness that isn’t common in girls her age, she is genuinely a sweetheart.

“Oh! Mr. Frank, do you know what’s happening tonight? Aside from Lottie’s birthday party, of course,” she says when she bounds back over to him, seemingly worn out from all her running around. Frank hardly believes that, though, knowing her.

“Hm? I can’t say I do,” he responds.

“My uncle is coming! He rarely ever comes around, and I simply adore Uncle,” she sighs wistfully.

“Is that so? What do you like about him?”

She thinks for a moment, tapping a pudgy finger to her chin. “He’s very funny. He always makes everyone smile. Even Papa, and Papa _never_ smiles. Oh, and he tells the best stories. He travels a lot, so he always comes home with wonderful stories. Mama says I’m a lot like him, which is why I like him so much, I guess,” she responds.

“Well, he sounds delightful. I would love to meet him.”

“You should!” Poppy suggests suddenly. “He’ll be at the party tonight! You _have_ to come, Mr. Frank.”

Frank frowns. He’d never been explicitly invited, and truthfully, he’d feel quite strange just showing up. He was really nothing more than house staff, and for him to show up to the party when he wasn’t helping out would be strange, to say the least. But then again, he’s certainly realized that neither Lord nor Lady Way are ones for conventional rules of how to treat their waitstaff.

“I promise I’ll at least think about it,” he decides on finally. “Now, we should really be getting back into our lesson.”

Poppy doesn’t look pleased about the answer, but she tucks back into her work with little complaint. Maybe, Frank figures, she thinks he’s more likely to come to the party if she behaves well now. But then, he realizes, that she’s smart for doing so, because it truthfully does almost win Frank over alone.

+++

Frank is absolutely, positively miffed, and there’s seemingly nothing he can do about it.

He stands in front of his bed, looking at the three different outfit options he has. Kitty had stopped him in the hallway earlier, when he’d been getting lunch for himself and Poppy, and told him basically what the young girl had as well. Why everyone wanted Frank to come to Lottie’s party, he wasn’t sure, but Kitty had given him a look like she was going to skin him alive when he’d tried to say that he didn’t exactly want to go, so he wasn’t left with much of an option.

He’s just about to throw up his arms in defeat and wear the clothes he’s already wearing, or maybe just not go at all, when a gentle knock echoes at his door, too soft to be Kitty knocking. Maybe it’s one of the other maids, he thinks as he walks over to open it, abandoning the clothes on his bed. Maybe it’s the pretty maid he’d seen the other day. The thought causes him to become giddy as he opens the door.

But it’s not Kitty or the pretty maid from the hallway, standing on the other side. It’s Lady Way. Frank barely keeps himself from sputtering in surprise.

“May I come in, Frank?” she asks sweetly, almost as if she can see the shock on his face. He’s trying his best to hide it, but he supposes he’s not doing a very good job. He nods and opens the door wider, allowing her to walk in. It’s then that he notices a well-folded bundle of fabric in her arms.

“I assume you’re coming to my daughter’s party tonight?” she says. Oh bloody _hell_ , now Frank really can’t just not come.

“Y-Yes, I was planning on it,” he responds, only needing to clear his throat once. Alicia nods approvingly and gestures at the clothes in her hands.

“Good, or else this formalwear I brought would have been for nothing,” she says in a harsh, but rather joking tone. Frank laughs nervously as she puts the outfit down on the bed. Alicia strolls back over to the door and opens it again, and Frank silently sighs, glad that it’s a short conversation. He still can’t help but be intimidated around her.

But before she leaves, she turns back to him, her hand still on the doorknob. “I’m very glad you’re coming, Frank,” she says gently. “And I’m sure Lottie and Poppy will be as well. They both couldn’t stop raving about your lesson yesterday, and Poppy willingly went down for a nap today after your lesson outside.” His cheeks go pink when she acknowledges it, but she doesn’t seem mad at all, which Frank supposes is a good thing. “See you tonight,” Alicia says finally, closing the door behind her as she leaves.

Frank lets his shoulders slump and a sigh escape him. He turns back to the bed, going to look at the clothes Alicia had brought. He picks up the first article of clothing and holds it up, noticing it’s a jacket. The Way family crest is imprinted on the breast of it.

And when Frank puts it on later, in front of the body mirror inside of his wardrobe, there’s a brief, fleeting sense of belonging inside of him. He brushes the buttoned fabric down for posterity, and tramps the feeling inside of him down with it. He knows not to get too attached, especially after such a short period of time. Children grow up, and Frank keeps moving.

+++

_“Watch where you’re going, midget!” one of Frank’s brothers - he didn’t see which - shouted at him. His brother pushed past him, knocking Frank to the ground. It didn’t really matter which brother it was, anyway, they all treated Frank the same._

_His family - if it could really even be_ called _that, everyone just seemed to hate each other to one extent to another - was comprised of a hodgepodge of boys adopted from all over England, including Frank himself. He never understood why his parents adopted so many children, when neither of them treated any of them as Frank thought a parent should. But what did he know? He never knew his real parents, so he wasn’t a good judge of character._

_But even though none of them were related, all of Frank’s brothers treated him like they would a youngest brother anyway. He was the runt of the litter; the last to be adopted, the smallest, the youngest, the most sickly. The most to be ignored or pushed around._

_Frank huddled up on the ground, finding no motivation within himself to move. His brothers were just going to steal all of the food anyway, whether Frank was trying to scrape up something to eat for lunch or not. He just pushed himself to the wall, not wanting to get in anyone’s way._

_Sometime later, a warmth surrounded him and caused him to look up at whatever it was. Jamia sat there in front of him, her arms surrounding him and enveloping him in a warm hug. Frank hugged back, but only for a moment. His brothers were bound to come back from lunch any moment, and he knew that if they saw him hugging anyone, no less a maid, a glorified slave to the household, they would pummel him into a pulp._

_She looked down at him sadly, still keeping a hand to his cheek. “What are you doing on the ground, Frankie?” she asked kindly, softly. Frank shrugged, embarrassed to reveal the actual answer. He was nearly 13 now, he should have been able to protect himself._

_“Did one of your brothers push you?” Jamia asked anyway, most likely knowing the answer without Frank having to even reveal it. He shrugged. She seemed to understand, though, and sat back on her haunches._

_Finally, she stood up, though, and offered out a hand to Frank. When he didn’t take it and stared blankly up at her, she rolled her eyes. “C’mon, now. I’d assume those little pigs are done feasting by now, I’m sure I can convince one of the cooks to make you something without too much of a hassle,” she said through a smile._

_It took Frank another moment, but he grabbed the hand Jamia offered him and pulled himself up._

+++

Before he can even walk in, Frank feels the stuffy atmosphere radiating from the ballroom. He’s never been to a proper party before, especially not one of such high notoriety. He hesitates by the door, listening to the lively, loud chatter coming from the room, trying to look inconspicuous as he does so. He feels his heart rate quicken as he even thinks about going in there. He really can’t do this.

But suddenly, Poppy is emerging through the door all by herself, shouting, “Mr. Frank!” when she sees him. She runs up to him and throws her arms around his waist, but Frank expects the movement this time, and hugs her back in a timely fashion.

“You look lovely, Miss Poppy,” he admires when she finally lets go of him. And she does, really. Her hair is neat and she’s wearing a big, poofy ball gown covered in pearls and lace. It’s the neatest and most well put together she’s looked in the two days Frank has known the young girl.

“Come on Mr. Frank!” she says, tugging his hand. “You have to come inside! I told Uncle all about you, he says he wants to meet you!”

That doesn’t make Frank feel any better. But he resigns himself to his fate, and follows behind Poppy as she worms her way through the throngs of people, not even excusing herself when she bumps into guests, making Frank excuse her actions for her.

Finally, they reach the front of the room, where Michael and a man Frank has never seen before stand, talking to each other. Poppy approaches them gleefully, her hand still around Frank’s wrist. She tugs on the unfamiliar man’s overcoat with her free hand, causing him to pause in the middle of his conversation with Michael and spin around to face Poppy.

“Uncle,” she says to him. “This is Lottie and I’s new tutor, Mr. Frank!”

He looks to Frank then, and Frank feels all the air escape from his lungs. He’s, well, Frank doesn’t know how to describe this man, even with his extensive vocabulary. He’s unkept, and a bit wild-looking. His hair is probably too long to be socially acceptable and it’s tucked haphazardly behind his ear, and his outfit, while crinkled and rather mismatched, still looks more expensive than anything Frank owns.

And, Frank realizes, he’s the same strange man from the painting in the hallway. Frank feels that shiver go down his spine again, only it’s much, much worse than usual.

“So this is the elusive Mr. Iero Poppy has been talking my ear off about all evening!” he says cheerfully, holding out a hand for Frank to shake. Poppy lets go of his wrist then, and Frank, rather mechanically , shakes his hand. The man’s palms are sweaty, but Frank is willing to bet that his are too. “I’ve heard nothing but good things about you, sir,” he compliments. Frank feels his face heat up.

“Please,” he says quietly. “Call me Frank.”

“Poppy,” Michael says down to his daughter. “Why don’t you go and try to find your sister? I believe we’re going to be cutting her cake soon.”

Poppy scampers away then, as her father commands, and Michael turns back to Frank and the man. Frank can feel the strange man boring holes into the side of his head for whatever reason, but he chooses to ignore it in favor of looking at anything but him. His collar feels too tight, suddenly, like he can’t breathe.

“Frank,” Michael finally says when he turns back. “This is my brother, Gerard. Gerard, the girls’ new tutor.”

Frank finally looks back at Gerard. “A pleasure.” Gerard smiles at Frank genuinely. He doesn’t have it in him to smile back equally as earnestly.

Frank skitters around the ballroom all night, trying not to look too suspicious. He doesn’t talk to anyone, save for Lady Way when she approaches him first and Kitty when he finds her. He doesn’t feel right talking to anyone, anyway. They’re all too high society and Frank is just, well, Frank. He doesn’t fit in with them.

But more importantly, he just tries his best to avoid Gerard. And really, all things considered, it works out pretty well.

Frank can’t pinpoint it, but there’s an odd sensation that coils in the pit of his belly whenever he sees Gerard across the ballroom, laughing jovially with some of the other guests, or carrying Poppy around on his hip like she’s not almost half his height already. The feeling is not at all dissimilar to what he feels when he passes what he now knows to be Gerard’s portrait in the hallway. He doesn’t like it, whatever it is.

After Lottie’s rather massive birthday cake has been cut, Frank takes that as a sign he’s now allowed to leave without it seeming rude. He makes hasty time getting back to his room, and doesn’t come out for the rest of the night. And by the time he falls asleep, his hands ache and his voice is scratchy with how many times he’s prayed his rosary.

+++

A few days pass, and after his first week in the house, Frank is rather acclimated to a structured routine of his own. Gerard has now seemingly become an at least semi-permanent member of the household, much to the joy of everyone in it. Frank’s ears start to hurt with all the stories Poppy, Lottie, and even Kitty and Chantal tell him of how much they love the man. He tries to avoid Gerard to the best of his ability, not enjoying the strange feeling he still gets from the man in the slightest. But it’s fairly hard to avoid Gerard completely, when Frank passes his portrait in the hall every day. The house is big, but suddenly, it doesn’t feel big enough.

One night, Frank wakes up with a dreadful cough. But that’s rather commonplace for him, especially when he moves to a new environment. He thinks little of it, and after he seems to be done coughing up the worst of it, he trudges his way out of his room, careful of where to step so the wooden floor doesn’t creak as much as usual. The paintings of the expansive hallway look much more lifelike in the dull light of the moon, shining through the hall’s many windows, and Frank feels a familiar shiver down his spine when he passes the portrait of Gerard, harried and smiling. The shiver spawns another coughing fit, and Frank subconsciously doubles over at one point. As he moves on, he just hopes he hadn’t woken anyone with his coughing.

His sense of the manor is better than it had been, but is still not up to par, all things considered. Navigating the passageways and making his way down the ornate staircase of the main hall seems to be even more difficult in the dark, but he manages to descend the stairs and make his way to the kitchen with relative ease. A cup of tea with lemon and honey had always been able to remedy his coughing fits in the past, so he figures there’s no harm in trying the method now. He doesn’t particularly want to be up all night with the damned cough anyway.

Frank’s sleepy feet drag him into the kitchen, all the way back to the pantry, where he figures there ought to be a tin of tea leaves or something of some sort. The kitchen looks much different at night - dark, empty, and completely not what Frank is used to - but he’s just a bit too tired to really notice it.

What he does notice, though, is the pantry door already being open when he gets to it.

Gerard stands in the middle of it, hand halfway in a tin of biscuits that, when Frank looks at it, he realizes is the tin Chantal had prepared earlier in the day for Frank to take to the girls tomorrow. Gerard’s eyes are wide, and half a biscuit is already hanging out of his mouth. Frank doesn’t know whether to chide him for eating what was supposed to be for the girls, or to laugh hysterically. Neither seem appropriate, so he just stands there, staring right back.

Finally, Gerard seems to be the first to regain some semblance of consciousness about the situation, and pops the lid back onto the tin, putting it back on the shelf next to him. He removes the half eaten biscuit from his mouth and hesitates, before finishing it.

“Sorry,” he says, but his mouth is still full, so it comes out muffled. He chews, swallows, and smiles sheepishly at Frank. Who still doesn’t know how to respond.

But he has to say _something_ , so he shakes his head and shrugs. “You don’t need to apologize. This is your house more than it will ever be mine, you’re free to do whatever you please.” He doesn’t mention how the treats were for the girls, however.

“Sure, but that’s still not a very flattering sight to see, I suppose,” Gerard reasons, and while Frank almost debates with him about it, he bites his tongue. “Um, did you need something?” Gerard finally asks.

Oh. Right. That. “I was actually looking for some tea,” he responds after his head and his heart are done the brief screaming match they’d been holding inside of him.

Gerard lights up at the words, immediately going and rummaging noisily through the shelf to his left. “Damn Kitty, she’s _always_ in here reorganizing the shelves,” he mutters under his breath, probably not intending for Frank to hear. But finally, he emerges with another tin, smaller than the one he’d had before, letting out a victorious “Aha!”

“Come on,” Gerard says to Frank, pushing his way past Frank gently so he can go back into the main kitchen. He picks up an oil lamp from one of the shelves that Frank didn’t notice when he first walked in, and goes over to the stove, where a brass kettle already sits. Frank follows him out, grabbing two clean enough tea cups from off of the counter next to the sink.

When it’s ready and made, the two drink their tea in silence, with Frank pretending he doesn’t hear the pleased noises Gerard lets out whenever he takes a particularly satisfying sip, and pretending that the noises aren’t doing something strange to him, causing a weird little feeling to bubble up inside of him.

“I’ve heard lots of good things from Lottie and Poppy about your teaching. Something about outdoor lessons..?” Gerard finally says, when Frank’s cup is already halfway emptied. Frank feels his face heat up, and he knows it’s not just from the steam of the tea.

“Yes, well,” he stutters. “I like to make their lessons as interesting as I can. I’ve found children learn better when they’re kept entertained at the same time.”

Gerard hums seemingly in approval, putting his cup down onto the counter he’s sitting on.

“I have to say, that might just be the best approach to teaching I’ve ever heard,” he praises. Frank hides his face behind his cup.

“Thank you,” he mumbles around the rim.

They fall into another silence, and while Frank still feels as if he’s walking on eggshells, it’s not nearly as bad as it had been. Maybe Gerard isn’t as scary as he’d perceived him to be after all.

“Maybe I’ll come watch a lesson, one of these days.”

The promise of an audience scares Frank, more than it probably should, but he just nods.

“I’m sure the girls would love it.”

And despite the nerves, he doesn’t mention how he would most likely enjoy it, too.

+++

And yet, Gerard does not show up to any lessons in the weeks that follow.

Frank sees him around sometimes, and is more friendly with him now, but Gerard seems to have a habit of keeping himself scarce, for whatever reason. That, or he simply doesn’t like leaving his quarters, or wherever he disappears to in the day. Which, according to Lady Way, is the main library. Frank can’t say he doesn’t blame him.

Despite becoming friendlier with Gerard, Frank still feels… strange around the man. He can’t describe it, doesn’t know how to, and the most frustrating part is that the feeling is right on the tip of Frank’s tongue, the words _right there_ , yet he still can’t piece them together in a full, cognitive sentence. Some sort of educator he is.

Frank wakes up again in the middle of the night, but it’s not due to spontaneous bouts of coughing or anything of the sort. It’s from a nightmare. He doesn’t often _get_ nightmares, but when he does, they’re bad.

So he sighs, runs his hands down his face, and gets up out of his bed, resigning himself to another sleepless night. He’d been drained, too, after having a rather interactive lesson with the girls earlier in the day, acting out with them the murder of Julius Caesar, as per Poppy’s request. He really did need the sleep, but he knew it wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

And so, after pulling on a pair of rather loose-fitting breeches, he takes to wondering the halls of the manor aimlessly, adding the places he’s never been to before to his mental map of the home.

Soon, he finds himself in an unfamiliar hallway, led there by the simple action of getting distracted by the enrapturing, overly detailed paintings lining the hallways. He should ask Lord or Lady Way if they know who painted them, in the morning.

Then, at the end of the hall, he spots a large set of double doors with no signifying marks. It’s only then that Frank realizes that the paintings are arranged in such a way that they act as land markers, telling whoever is traveling in their halls where exactly they are in the manor. It’s genius.

He pushes the doors open with little hesitation, revealing a large, ornate library within. Frank huffs in wonderment, stepping inside. He has to spin around, even crane his neck a little, to see all of the books. The shelves seem to go on forever, each of them lined with what has to be thousands of books each. Frank didn’t know this many books even _existed_.

He wants to run over to the first shelf he sees and pull out a book at random, just for the novelty of even interacting with such a grand place - seriously, how had he never found this place before? - but he doesn’t, instead choosing to go and peer at the open book already at one of the tables littering the room.

He approaches the table, leaning over to look down at the book, squinting at it in the low light of the moon shining through the windows. It doesn’t appear to be any normal book, though, and when Frank looks at it, he realizes that it’s a sketchbook, and not, in fact, filled with words. Frank feels his face heat up when he realizes the sketch is of a naked woman, laid over a marble bench. But it’s so detailed and _beautiful_ , that he really can’t bring himself to look away from it.

“Frank?” someone says from behind him suddenly, causing him to jump. He hadn’t noticed anyone in there with him. Frank turns around slowly, vaguely feeling like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t, even though no one ever said the main library was off limits, or anything of the sort.

Gerard stands across the room, overshadowed by the moon’s rays coming from the window. Frank breathes a sigh of relief when he Gerard approaches him.

“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” Gerard says when he’s closer, peering at Frank curiously. But Frank doesn’t miss the ghost of a pleased smile on the man’s lips. His tongue, inexplicably, suddenly feels very heavy and dry in his mouth, almost preventing him from responding.

“I could ask you the same question,” he retorts. “It seems I’ve only ever really seen you at night, Gerard. I’m beginning to fear you’re one of those beastly creatures from Stoker’s newest novel.”

Gerard lets out a laugh then. It’s loud, and honking, and he even snorts once or twice. Frank feels his heart stutter in his chest at the noise.

“You know, I wouldn’t be surprised myself if I were to discover I _was_ one of those creatures,” he says once he’s finally done laughing, grinning at Frank. “I can safely say I don’t enjoy consuming the blood of the innocent, though. Far too metallic for my taste,” Gerard hums, closing the cover of the sketchbook on the table.

Quickly, though, almost as the whole conversation hadn’t happened, Gerard strolls back over to the window he’d been staring out of, his bare feet making soft padding sounds on the wooden floors. Frank wants to begin exploring the library then, but his brain seems to have other plans, making his feet follow Gerard to the window. Plus, he fears that if he were to begin exploring the library more now, he’d spend the whole night looking through it, and would be far too caught up in it to leave in the morning.

Frank stands behind Gerard quietly for a few moments, trying to understand what has caught Gerard’s attention so strongly. But after he can’t seem to figure it out, he clears his throat gently, causing Gerard to look back down at him. Frank wonders briefly if Gerard had forgotten about his presence there entirely. He wouldn’t doubt it, not with the strange man Gerard seems to be.

“She’s especially beautiful tonight, don’t you think?” Gerard sighs when he looks down at Frank. There’s a relaxed smile on his face, and Frank thinks it’s the most relaxed he’s ever seen the man.

“Um,” Frank stutters, because he truly doesn’t know how to respond. “Who, exactly?”

Gerard snorts and rolls his eyes, gesturing out the window. “La lune, der Mond, de maan, yueliang.”

Frank stares at him incredulously.

“The moon!” Gerard laughs, but it only confuses Frank more.

“I suppose it’s pretty,” he says, wringing his hands behind his back. How else is he supposed to respond, anyway? He’s got a growing suspicion that maybe Gerard doesn’t have all of his marbles left.

Gerard sputters and looks at Frank like _he’s_ the crazy one. He snaps the curtains shut suddenly, grabbing Frank by his wrist and dragging him deeper into the library, scanning the rows before stopping at one shelf in particular. He lets his eyes and his fingers scan over it, before coming across what he was looking for. Meanwhile, Frank is having a small bout of panic behind the strange man.

He grabs the book off of the shelf and takes Frank back to one of the tables, dropping Frank’s wrist when they get there. Frank brings his wrist up to his chest, rubbing at it with his other hand. Gerard’s grip had been rather vice-like. Gerard lays the book out onto the table, flipping through it wildly until he comes across a specific page, letting out a small “aha!” as he points to a passage.

“Here, come here,” he says to Frank, motioning for him to come stand next to him. Frank, with little else to do than just complying to Gerard’s wishes, does so, leaning over the book with Gerard.

A sketch of an ethereal-seeming woman sitting in a crescent moon is on the left page, the tendrils of her hair fluttering in an imaginary wind, and her long, white wings spread out behind her. On the other page, some Greek writing that Frank can’t read acts as a header, the rest of the page translated in English. His eyes gloss over the words, but he doesn’t have time to really read them before Gerard is speaking again.

“Selene was the Greek goddess of the moon,” he says, running a finger down the sketch of the woman. “She was known to be a sort of warrior, like Artemis, but she had a softer side, too.”

“How so?” Frank asks. He keeps his voice soft, too. Gerard’s lips quirk up, a soft laugh in his tone.

“She fell in love with a human. Endymion.” Gerard shuts the book with a sudden bang, slipping it back onto the shelf. It snaps Frank out of a sort of reverie he didn’t notice he’d fallen into.

“I wouldn’t say I worship her, but…” Gerard hesitates.

“You admire her?”

Gerard looks to Frank, still smiling. He nods.

“She provides a source of inspiration. Strength.” he shrugs, looking back out the window, where, despite the closed curtains, the moonlight still peeks through.

+++

_Frank barely heard the door as it creaked open, focusing too intently on the moon outside his window. His eyes stung with lack of sleep, and from the brightness of the moon, but he couldn’t bring himself to look away, too afraid to fall back asleep._

_“What are you doing awake, Frankie?” Jamia asked as she stepped into the darkened room. Frank jumped, turning around and scrambling up from the floor. He knew Jamia wouldn’t punish him, she’d never punish him unless he really deserved it, unlike his parents. But still, after years of being trained to expect the worst, he couldn’t help it._

_“Nothing, nothing, I was just-” he paused, when Jamia strode over to him, brushing a lock of hair from his face, letting her hand fall to his cheek. Even in the dim glow of the moon and nothing else, Frank could see the bags under Jamia’s eyes, the frown lines around her mouth. How he didn’t notice all those things, all the signs of a difficult life working under the Iero family, as a child, he didn’t know. Her hand fell from his cheek, and slipped into his, grasping it tightly as she led him over to his bed, sitting him down as she sat next to him._

_“Tell me what’s wrong, sweetheart,” she pushed gently, rubbing a hand up and down his arm soothingly. Frank sighed, and rubbed at his eyes._

_“Nothing is wrong. I’m of adolescence now, I don’t need to explain why I’m awake,” he huffed. Jamia laughed lightly, and shook her head. Frank didn’t mean to be so harsh, but it just slipped out that way. The lack of sleep was catching up to him, he figured. At least Jamia wasn’t taking it personally._

_“You don’t,” she said a-matter-of-factly, her hand pausing on his shoulder. “But I’d appreciate it if you did.”_

_Frank sighed, purposefully staring down at the floorboards. It was stupid, he thought, he didn’t want to talk to Jamia about this. It was embarrassing, especially now that he was older. He shouldn’t be having nightmares. Not ones that freaked him out this badly, at least._

_“I had a nightmare,” he said quietly. He heard Jamia huff out of pity. It was the last thing he wanted to hear at that moment._

_“What was it about?”_

_Frank had been trying to forget it the entire night, since he’d woken, and he didn’t want to relive it, but now, the memories of the dream came flooding back, causing him to shiver._

_“I was in the kitchen,” he spoke slowly, “And you were there. But you weren’t-” his voice cracked as he remembered the most jarring part of the dream. He almost couldn’t bring himself to even say it out loud. “You were dead, on the counter.” he finally pushed the words out._

_“Oh, Frankie,” Jamia sighed. Frank wanted to curl up against her, for her to hold him like she would when he was younger. He wanted her to pet his hair and whisper rambling words in soft, soothing tones until he fell back asleep. But he didn’t push himself against her, and stayed a safe distance away as he continued reciting the dream. His hands shook as he gripped and ungripped the fabric of his nightclothes._

_“There was nothing there that told me that that was what it was, but I could tell. It was my punishment for the thoughts I’ve been having,” he finished in a harsh whisper. Jamia’s hand paused from where it’d been rubbing up and down once more. He could hear her suck in a scared breath._

_“You haven’t told anyone else, have you?” she asked. Frank could hear the fear in her voice, the fear for him. He shook his head wildly, but kept it ducked._

_“No, no. I’m not that stupid.” Frank hadn’t told anyone except Jamia, he couldn’t. The thoughts were disgusting, sinful, he wouldn’t ever dream about telling anyone except Jamia. And the only reason he had told her in the first place was because she’d wormed it out of him, after his anxiety from the thoughts had gotten so bad that he’d been throwing up daily from it._

_“I don’t think you’re stupid, lovely,” Jamia said kindly, gently. “I just think you need to be careful. I wish I could tell you that the thoughts you’re having are normal, are nothing to be ashamed of, but I’m afraid of what path that will lead you down. The world may have kind people in it, but the world itself is not kind,” she sighed, her voice sad and remorseful._

_Frank nodded. He knew that better than anyone._

_They sat quietly for a few moments, Jamia’s hand moving from his arm to his back, rubbing circles into his muscles. Despite how tense he still was, how sad he was, how afraid he still was, he felt himself melt at least a little under her touch._

_“Come here.” She pushed Frank lightly until he was laying down, his head falling into her lap. Frank, suddenly, got the overwhelming urge to cry, but he wouldn’t. He had to be stronger. Jamia’s hand found his hair, and she buried it in his locks, scratching at his scalp lightly and humming a tune under her breath._

+++

The next day’s lesson is probably Frank’s favorite, at least his favorite lesson with Lottie and Poppy. Inspired by his and Gerard’s conversation about Greek mythology the night prior, he searches through both the main library and the children’s library for every book he can find on Greek mythology, epics, and books on the Greek language, forming a sort of lesson plan with each book he finds. And by the time that Poppy and Lottie are rushing in for the morning, bright-eyed and actually _eager_ to learn, Frank feels more confident about this lesson than he’s ever felt about a lesson in his entire tutoring career.

He teaches them all he can about Greek mythos, dabbling in short lessons in between teaching them all he knows about the Greek language, even if it is just a little. Both girls focus on the lesson raptly, and soon after lunch, Frank allows them to act out scenes from _The Odyssey_.

They’re right in the middle of Poppy, playing Odysseus, attempting to slay Polyphemus, played by Frank, once and for all, when there’s a quick succession of rasps on the classroom door. Everyone’s focus darts to the door, and Frank freezes up before he remembers to call out, “Come in!” He hopes it not Lord or Lady Way, because this certainly wouldn’t be the time for them to overview a lesson.

But when the door creaks open, it reveals Gerard’s round, smiling face, already beginning to babble out words. “I hope I’m not interrupting, but I remember promising you, Frank, that I’d come and watch a lesson some time, so-” he pauses as he opens the door wider, stepping in, when he sees Poppy with her arm raised, a ruler in her hand as Frank is leaning backwards, feigning being in immense pain. “But I can certainly see that I’ve interrupted something,” Gerard hums, obviously amused.

Frank straightens up immediately, looking at Gerard with a surprised expression. He tries to say something, but no words come out of his mouth, so he ends up opening and closing his mouth like a dying fish, the words drying up in his throat. How is he supposed to explain _this_ to him?

“Mr. Frank and I were reenacting _The Odyssey_ , Uncle!” Poppy says cheerfully, grasping the ruler tightly in both of her hands. Gerard gives her a thoughtful look and strides over to scoop her up in his arms, tilting his head.

“Is that so?” Poppy nods wildly. Gerard looks to Frank then, a proud, impressed look on his face. “Well, that’s quite amicable. Heaven only knows their old teacher would be too timid to try to teach such an impressive topic like Homer’s classics.”

Frank shrugs, finally snapping out of his strange trance. He leans against his desk. “I’m sure their old tutor was an impressive educator in their own way,” he tries to deflect. The compliments are starting to go to his head.

“Bah,” Gerard scoffs, shifting Poppy to his hip so he can flap a hand. “She was hardly a tutor, more of a governess,” he clarifies. “Certainly not what these two needed.”

Frank doesn’t know how to respond, so he doesn’t, and walks around his desk to grab an open copy of _The Odyssey_.

“Well, you’re welcome to stay and watch the rest of the lesson, if you’d like,” Frank offers Gerard, who nods gladly and puts Poppy back down, going to sit down in Poppy’s desk, sitting next to Lottie. He’s entirely too big for the desks, which are made for children, so he has to squeeze in, but once he does, he puts his chin in his hand, smiling specifically at Frank and gesturing for him and Poppy to continue. Frank gulps, but puts the book down again, and goes on acting out the defeat of Polyphemus.

Poppy and Frank progress through the story of Odysseus and his adventures, reenacting different scenes from the classic epic. Gerard watches with utmost attention, seeming more focused on their theatrics than Lottie seems. Frank almost chides her for her lackluster attention, he _is_ trying to teach a lesson here after all, but he loses the train of thought when Poppy, now playing the witch Circe, ‘turns’ Frank into a pig.

Eventually, they come to the scene with the sirens, and Frank agrees to let Poppy still pretend to be Odysseus, wrapping his arms around her gently as if to act as Odysseus’ men, holding him back from the sirens call. And all the while, Gerard agrees to play a siren.

When Frank suggests it, he leaps up from Poppy’s desk excitedly and crouches down, putting on a dark, mischievous expression. He begins humming a tune Frank doesn’t recognize, eventually singing out as he circles around Poppy threateningly, the young girl trying her best to hold in her giggles. And when Frank looks over, he can see Lottie trying not to laugh too.

But Frank can only focus on Gerard’s singing.

He’s not a traditionally good singer, not by any means; his voice is scratchy and nasally, and yet Frank is enraptured by it. He wonders absently if Gerard really is a siren, and almost forgets what they’re supposed to be doing in the first place. But Gerard finishes his song, and whispers, “You have escaped the clutches of the sirens. For now,” all the while staring at Frank and Frank only.

They run through the rest of _The Odyssey_ , and by the time Odysseus has reunited with Penelope, his wife, Poppy seems worn out and she barely gets through the scene. Gerard sees this too, and asks her if she wants him to take over his role. She nods sleepily, exchanging spots with Gerard and slumping over in her desk.

Gerard walks to the front of the room with Frank and suddenly dips him in his arms, eliciting a shocked sound from Frank. He stares up blankly at Gerard, the words in his mouth drying up in an instant. It feels like his heart is going to beat out of his chest, and Frank seriously wonders how Gerard can’t hear it, with how loud it sounds in Frank’s ears.

“I missed you so, my dear wife,” Gerard sighs the lines, not even putting on a voice or anything. Frank gulps, knowing he has to respond.

“And I missed you,” he finally stutters out. Gerard grins down at him, lifting him out of his arms. He takes a bow when the girls start clapping for the two of them, and it takes Frank a moment before he realizes they’re clapping for him too, expecting him to bow.

The girls scamper out of the room soon after, with the retelling of _The Odyssey_ being their last lesson of the day. But Gerard doesn’t. He stays back, leaning on Frank’s desk as he cleans up for the day and pointedly doesn’t look up at Gerard. Not until Gerard clears his throat.

“I’m sorry if that last part was strange for you,” he apologizes, confusing Frank. He hadn’t really been freaked out by it, it was just theatrics. If anything, all Frank felt was that familiar, strange feeling coiled inside of him bloom to life again, only more intense than usual.

He shakes his head, locking the books from the day in the chest in the corner of the room. “No, it’s quite alright. It just surprised me, is all.”

“Well, I do tend to have that effect on people,” Gerard laughs. Frank doesn’t respond. Instead, he stands back up, straightening out his waistcoat.

“Come to dinner tonight?” Gerard asks suddenly, his tone hopeful. It takes Frank aback, like most things that Gerard says, as Frank has found. It’s quite endearing, actually. Frank shakes that thought away. He can’t be thinking things like that.

Frank almost says no, especially after everything that’s happened between him and Gerard today. But with the hopeful look Gerard is giving him, his eyes wide and clear and his mouth pinched up on one side in a sweet smile, Frank finds he can’t say no. He sighs.

“I suppose I can.” He shrugs. And if the way Gerard’s smile grows when Frank agrees is any condolence, Frank doesn’t think he’ll regret the decision in the slightest.

+++

Dinner that night is atrocious. Well, the food is good, as always, and Frank can’t say he’s not happy to be able to spend time with the Ways, seeing them all together as a family now that he knows them better than his first night there is a bit  jarring, but no less pleasant experience. Poppy and Lottie talk his ear off almost the entire night, clearly excited that he’s _finally_ having dinner with them. And when the girls have held his attention for long enough, Lord and Lady Way also talking to him nearly nonstop, asking him to tell stories of his life before the manor, stories that the girls seem to love too.

No, what makes dinner atrocious that night is Gerard.

Frank doesn’t know whether it’s intentional or not - but at this point, he’s willing to bet that it very much is - but Gerard acts even more strange and uncivilized than normal. He plays with his food, makes funny faces at Poppy from across the table, and adds just that much more whimsy and delight to his stories than usual. And all the while, he sneaks glances at Frank whenever possible. Frank pretends not to notice them, but there’s only so much that he can handle. By the time the meal is over, he can barely wait to get out of the dining hall and far, far away from Gerard.

The next couple of weeks continue in largely the same pattern, save for Frank making excuses as to why he can’t come to the family dinner each night when Gerard asks. Frank pretends the sad, dejected little pout Gerard shoots him whenever Frank turns down his offers doesn’t bother him.

But Gerard seems to pop up everywhere. He begins coming to Poppy and Lottie’s lessons regularly, always either participating in the lesson in some way, or simply sitting in the back of the classroom, observing. It’s becoming distracting for the girls, Frank notices, and Frank wishes that he didn’t feel the same.

And it doesn’t even stop there. Gerard begins spending as much time as he can with Frank, especially on Frank’s days off; he’s in the library when Frank is there too, he’s out in the garden when Frank is there, and he’s strolling into the kitchen “accidentally” when Frank is there, talking to Kitty and Chantal. And when he talks to Frank, his words seem almost specific, like he’s actively putting more thought into what he wants to say around Frank, rather than just letting his mouth do the talking while he doesn’t pay attention. He seems to be in a perpetual state of flustered around Frank, yet he never stops trying to get Frank’s attention.

Frank finds himself speaking with Gerard differently, too, in a totally unconscious way. He’s more careful about what he wants to say, and he can’t stop _smiling_ around Gerard, especially when Gerard talks, no matter how much it might annoy him the smallest bit. It’s like his brain is shouting at him that this is _wrong_ and Gerard shouldn’t be making him this _happy_ , but his heart is in a different place entirely.

And it makes Frank sick to his stomach.

At night, he lies awake, thinking over how wrong it is to like Gerard this much. Gerard is just a friend, will never be more than a friend, and Frank needs to make himself realize that. But seemingly, no matter how many hours he lies awake at night telling himself that, he can’t seem to believe it.

When he’s with Gerard, Frank forgets how wrong it is. He forgets that the butterflies in his stomach he gets when he sees Gerard’s crooked, eager smile aren’t normal, forgets that wanting to hug Gerard and feel his warm softness pressed up against him isn’t normal either.

But when he’s away, the anxiety begins returning. He finds himself bent over the toilet bowl after dinner, not being able to keep down his food with the way his stomach keeps churning. Every hour spent away from Gerard just makes it worse and worse, until Frank is pale and clammy and shaky and looks and feels like he’s three seconds away from collapsing.

 _You’ll be damned to hell, Frank_ , he hears his mother’s voice say in his head when he’s trying to sleep. _God doesn’t love filthy sinners. God has no time for them and their disgusting ways._

+++

It all comes to an apex a few nights later.

Gerard finds Frank in the library, and while he is typically rather handsy, he seems even more so at that moment. He leans over Frank’s shoulder while he’s reading and begins reading with him, and before Frank knows it, Gerard’s hand is in his hair, playing with the soft curls at the base of Frank’s scalp. He doesn’t notice it until nearly ten minutes after Gerard had began doing it. Frank has to leave after that, scrambling out of the library while giving Gerard some flimsy excuse about how he had to work on a lesson plan for the next day.

Frank huffs as he gets to his room and practically slams the door shut, panting as he sags against the door. He’d walked as fast as he could to his room, but he knows that’s not what’s making his heart hammer in his chest. He brings a sweaty, shaky hand up to his hair, raking the hand through it.

He tries to get his heart to calm down, and when he at least partly succeeds, he begins to walk over to his bed, only to notice that he’s painfully hard in his pants.

Frank feels like vomiting.

He doesn’t let himself think, keeps his head perfectly clear and blank and he unbuttons his pants and pulls them down, shoving his hand immediately into his underwear. As soon as he secures a fist around his member, he lets out a sigh of guilty relief. He keeps his pace fast and determined, trying not to think of why he’s doing this in the first place. He knows exactly why, though, knows it when he thinks of dark, messy hair and hazel eyes and crooked, smiling mouths.

Frank already knows that masturbation in itself is sinful. But coupled with the thought of Gerard, Frank feels like the ground is going to swallow him whole in some form of holy wrath. He moans out Gerard’s name before he can control himself.

He comes not but a few seconds later, the sticky, white ropes of semen shooting out of him and into his underwear that he never bothered to take off, making his hand a mess. But he doesn’t feel relief, or the euphoria that usually comes with an orgasm. Immediately, Frank pulls his hand out of his underwear like something down there had burned him, and he pulls it to his chest, not even caring about the mess it’s causing. He sinks to the floor, already feeling hot tear tracks cover his cheeks. The impact of what he’s done hits him in full force, then. He’s committed the most unspeakable sin he can imagine, something he’s been trained to stay away from his whole life. He masturbated, masturbated, no less, to _Gerard_. A _man_. The thought, now, makes him cover his mouth with his clean hand, feeling the bile rise in his throat. Even through his fear and his terror and his guilt, Frank can’t push away the lingering thought that he doesn’t regret that it was about Gerard, just the fact that Gerard is a man. Frank has no doubts that if Gerard were born a woman, Frank would have proposed to him already. The thought isn’t comforting.

Frank curls up onto the cold, wooden ground, after a good ten minutes without him stopping his crying. He can’t, seemingly. He can’t stop crying.

Not until there’s a knock on his door.

Frank immediately stops his sobs, letting out only a hiccup or two that he covers with his hand. He briefly remembers the come on his other hand, and the fact that he doesn’t have pants on still, so he wipes the now-dried come off on his shirt, before scrambling into his pants as he gets up off of the floor and tells whoever is knocking that they can come in.

It’s Lady Way. Of course it is.

To make matters worse, the first thing out of her mouth as soon as she enters the room is a pitiful sounding, “Are you alright, Frank? I heard you crying.”

Frank feels his face heat up instantaneously, the guilty feeling returning inside of him at full force. But then again, he’s not sure it ever went away. He doesn’t look at Alicia as she sits down next to him on his bed, putting a hand on his back. It almost reminds him of his childhood.

“I just- I-” Frank shouldn’t be telling her this. The only person he’s ever told these sorts of thoughts is Jamia, and he hasn’t talked to her in years. Suddenly, he misses her terribly. It doesn’t make the guilt and the shame and the terror he feels any better. “I’ve been having these thoughts,” he says quietly.

Alicia hums. “What sorts of thoughts?”

“Terrible thoughts. Sinful thoughts.”

“You’re lucky we’re not a particularly religious family, then,” she laughs, and it _does_ truthfully make Frank feel just a bit better. It’s shocking - the entirety of England is rather religious, especially well-known and important families like the Ways - but it gives Frank the confidence to confide in Alicia. “And what would these thoughts be, exactly?”

Frank swallows the bile in his throat. “Thoughts about Gerard.”

The air around his words hangs stale and tense, almost so much so that Frank feels as if he could reach out and grab it. He wonders if he’s the only one who can feel the tension, because Alicia still seems miraculously calm. Frank can’t say he doesn’t wish he was in her position.

“You fancy him,” she says. It’s not a question, it’s a statement. A fact. It’s almost as if Frank’s just realizing that himself in that moment, along with Alicia. He does like Gerard, more than a friend. He doesn’t feel as guilty about it, suddenly. Not when he knows it’s a fact of life. Frank’s brain is still screaming at him that this is wrong, this is sinful, that his mother is going to be disappointed in him and he’s going to get hit and beaten or worse and-

And Frank’s no longer in that home, that family. He doesn’t have to fear his mother or his father any more.

“I do.”

Alicia is quiet, but Frank doesn’t get the feeling that she’s judging him or angry with him. He’s fairly sure she would have hit him and kicked him out of her home by now if she was. The silence, while not suffocating or threatening, still doesn’t make Frank feel the most comfortable. But he’s starting to realize that his time at the manor seems to be largely comprised of a series of uncomfortable moments. At least it’s familiar, by now.

“So tell him,” Alicia states, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Frank chokes on his own tongue, and sputters at her.

“Pardon me?” he tries to clarify. And when Frank looks at her preposterously, Alicia simply shrugs.

“Tell him. There’s no shame in it, Frank.”

“I can’t tell him!” Frank shouts, getting up from his bed. “You might not judge me, but _he_ might! And even if he doesn’t, it’s not like he could ever feel the same as me.” Frank wraps his arms around himself, trying to feel some sense of security. This whole situation makes Frank feel like he’s a fish out of water, he realizes.

Alicia laughs then, causing Frank to look at her incredulously. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she mumbles throughout her giggles. She wipes a few happy tears from her eyes. “It’s just, really Frank? Gerard’s practically in love with you already!”

Oh.

Frank feels his blood freeze in his veins, his brain slow until it comes to a sluggish standstill. Gerard practically loves him already. _He_ practically loves Gerard back. The feeling from the thought is warm and nestles itself in Frank’s belly, and Frank feels faint suddenly, but in the best way possible. Gerard _practically loves him_.

“I- How?” he can’t help but ask.

“Do you _really_ not see the way he looks at you all the time?” she questions, her grin incredulous. “And with the way he jokes around you? And the stories he tells?”

“He’s just trying to annoy me.” Frank crosses his arms.

“He’s trying to _impress_ you. To make you smile.” Alicia stands up and puts her hands on Frank’s elbows, coaxing him so she can gently take his hands in hers. She gives them a squeeze. Now, more than ever, she reminds Frank greatly of Jamia. “Gerard is a lot like an open book, Frank. He’s not very hard to read once you get past the strangeness. Just talk to him, and you’ll see.”

Frank takes the words in, not seeming to believe them no matter how much sense they make. Suddenly, the whole situation feels violently wrong. Frank shouldn’t be doing this- what was he thinking? Even if he wasn’t sill under the control of his parents, he was still under the control of God, always. He needs to stop thinking this is okay. This will never be okay.

Suddenly, he wrenches his hands from Alicia’s grasp. He feels a flicker of guilt for inflicting such a rude gesture upon a woman who has been nothing but kind to him, but he doesn’t let it simmer. He has too many other things to feel guilty about.

“No,” he says sharply. “You’re wrong.”

Alicia gives him a look, but she still doesn’t look mad. Frank wonders how she does it.

“How so?” she asks.

“Gerard can’t like me in that way. That’s- It’s wrong, and disgusting. And I don’t like him either. I can’t. I’ll push it down inside of me and wait for it to go away.”

“It doesn’t work like that. You know it doesn’t.” She frowns. She stays quiet and lets Frank simmer, just for a moment, before she speaks again. “Do you know how Michael and I met?”

Frank quirks an eyebrow. He had just assumed they were arranged in marriage and got lucky enough to happen to fall in love with one another.

“I know what you’re thinking, and, no, I don’t have a single drop of high-society blood in me.” Alicia smirks. Frank opens his mouth to say something, but shuts it immediately afterwards when he realizes that he doesn’t know how to respond.

“I was the daughter of an innkeeper.”

Frank can barely keep his eyebrows from shooting up to his hairline. Alicia laughs.

“I still am technically, of course,” she sighs. “Michael was traveling and came to stay at our inn. Everyone in England seems to know the Way name of course, so it was quite the shock. But as he was leaving, he said that I was the only person his entire stay that treated him like he was a normal person rather than the son of a Lord, and he attempted to propose to me on the spot. I didn’t let him,” she clarifies quickly. “But I did let him take me on an outing to a public garden the next town over.”

“What happened after that?”

Even now, the story seems to make her sad, for some reason. She looks at the ground. “His parents found out he was courting a lowly inn keeper, and forbade him from seeing me.”

It makes Frank gulp. “How did you end up married?”

“As soon as his parents gave up the house to him - after Gerard, being the older sibling, had said he didn’t want to take the responsibility -” Frank can imagine him saying such a thing, “he sought me out and proposed to me on the spot once more. He was an adult, and the head of a successful household at only 19. His parents couldn’t forbid him from much at that point.”

Alicia puts a hand on Frank’s shoulder, and he doesn’t shrug her off this time. “So, what I suppose I’m trying to say here is that, I know what you’re going through, Frank. Even if it is on a much simpler scale. I know what it’s like to want someone you can’t have. But I promise you, it will work out one way or another, if you let it.” She squeezes his shoulder and lets her hand drop, before leaving the room without another word.

Frank doesn’t respond, doesn’t say anything more, and lets her leave with the door closing quietly behind her.

+++

Frank leaves his room soon after, needing to get out of the confined space. He would prefer to leave the house as a whole, just for the day, but he knows that he has a late lesson with the girls planned today in only a few hours, so he resigns himself to mindlessly wandering through the halls of the manor once more, building his mental map. Well, at least trying to. His mind keeps slipping back to thoughts of Gerard and love and what Lady Way had said to him before she had left.

He briefly finds himself on a path to the library, but he knows that Gerard is most likely in there, so he avoids it as if the room is filled with people dying from the plague, and backs into the hallway opposite the library, eventually stopping in front of a wall of paintings he’s never seen before.

They’re all beautiful and intricate, and Frank can’t help but notice that they’re all in a similar art style to the one he’d seen in the sketchbook that night in the library with Gerard. He’s busy studying a portrait of a finely-dressed woman with a dog at her feet when he hears footsteps walking down the hall. He barely has a moment to turn around and see who’s approaching him when Gerard is right there, in Frank’s face. He stops breathing.

Gerard stands silently at Frank’s side for a good few moments, staring up at the paintings Frank has suddenly lost interest in. His throat feels like it’s closing up, and he wants to say something, but finds himself completely unable to. So instead, he turns back to the paintings, not focusing on them at all.

“I wish I could repaint these. They were only training pieces, you see. I’ve improved greatly since then, at least I hope I have,” Gerard says suddenly, and Frank sputters, his eyes going wide and the negative feelings leaving his mind. At the moment, all he can seem to think is _Dear God,_ you _painted these?_

He voices the words. “You painted these?” Frank’s voice is shaky and crackling, and he feels a warm blush of embarrassment blossom on his cheeks.

Gerard turns to Frank then, smiling and giggling. “Every single one in the house. These halls would probably be crammed to the brim if I wasn’t so busy painting things for other people.” he shrugs, clearly enjoying the flustered look on Frank’s face.

Christ almighty, he’s talented _and_ attractive, Frank thinks, before immediately pushing the thought out of his head.

“What’s your most beloved one?” he asks, instead of saying anything that could get him in trouble.

Gerard hums, thinking. “I think the one of Michael, Alicia, and the girls. You know, the one out near the girls’ hallway?”

Frank knows it. More importantly, he knows the smaller self portrait of Gerard next to it.

They fall into a lapsed silence, one that, Frank is surprised to find, is not overtly uncomfortable. Of course, not until Gerard makes it as such.

“I’m sorry about earlier, I didn’t know it would make you so uncomfortable, and I just thought that we-” he suddenly rushes out all in one breath, leaving Frank to blink at him, dumbfounded. “I’m just- I’m sorry.”

Frank takes a moment to gather his thoughts, feeling partly sick but also partly abashed and filled with amazement at just standing in front of Gerard, at just seeing him, before he clears his throat and looks down at his shoes. There’s a speck of dust or dirt at the toe that’s particularly interesting.

“It’s alright. I wasn’t offended.”

Gerard doesn’t respond, and Frank is just about to look up at him and gauge what he’s thinking when Gerard slips a finger under Frank’s chin, making him look up slowly. It’s almost as if Gerard can read Frank’s mind. But then, he drops the thought, thinking of the horrors that would actually entail.

“Frankie…” he sighs, and this is it, Frank figures. There’s no going back. They both seem to lean in slowly, Frank ignoring every single thought screaming at him in that moment. Gerard’s eyes slip closed, and it’s almost as if Frank is broken from some sort of trance.

He moves away instantly, giving a wide berth of space between him and Gerard. They were _so close_. The ill feeling from earlier has returned.

“I-I’m sorry, Gerard,” Frank stutters. “I-I can’t.”

Gerard looks at him, his expression completely unreadable. Somehow, that’s even worse than if his expression was sad, or even angry. Frank feels his stomach churn, and he clenches his fist at his side.

“I just thought-” Gerard cuts himself off. “Why?”

 _Why?_ Frank wants to shout. _It’s wrong, that’s why!_

But Frank knows Gerard, and knows that Gerard would just ask why it’s wrong. Frank shakes his head, because he doesn’t have a good enough answer.

“It’s- I-” he struggles. “It’s sinful,” he says instead. That, at least, he can answer, shall the questions come.

But they don’t come. “I don’t care if it’s sinful, Frank. It doesn’t matter.” Gerard scrunches up his face, confused, and there’s a brief, fleeting moment where still Frank finds it adorable.

Frank, though, just looks at him with a mild expression of disgust. “Well _I_ do. I’ve been raised against it my entire life, Gerard! I can’t just go back on it now,” he shouts, not noticing how truly frustrated he’s becoming with the situation as a whole.

“But, Frank,” Gerard scrambles, “I thought-”

“Well whatever your thought,” Frank responds. “It was wrong.”

Frank walks forward, bumping Gerard in the shoulder as he goes back. Somehow, he feels more guilty for that and the sad look on Gerard’s face that he leaves him with, rather than the knowledge that he almost kissed Gerard and didn’t see anything wrong with it until the very last moment.

+++

_“Jamia?” Frank asked, peering up from his book and looking at Jamia as she puttered around his room, cleaning. There wasn’t much to clean, of course - Frank didn’t exactly own many worldly possessions, and most of them were in their respective spots already - but she dusted and cleaned what she could. She looked up at Frank, pausing her dusting, and hummed in question._

_“Have you ever been in love?”_

_The look Jamia gave him was nothing short of surprised. She put her dusting rag onto Frank’s bureau and strode across the room, sitting on the edge of his bed._

_“Why?” she questioned. Frank shrugged and put his book down. It was a romance novel, one about a man rescuing a girl from a ship of pirates. He had taken it from Jamia’s room a few days prior, seemingly without her knowledge. Well, if she knew, she hadn’t said anything._

_“Just wondering,” he muttered. Suddenly, he felt stupid. He shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t be prying._

_But Jamia didn’t look mad. She never looked mad. “Once,” she said kindly._

_“Who was it?”_

_She smiled, a private sort of smile, and took Frank’s hand in hers, giving it a small squeeze. “His name was Ray. He was the kindest soul I’ve ever met.”_

_Frank found that hard to believe, because Jamia seemed to be the kindest soul_ he’d _ever met. He could hardly imagine that there was anyone kinder._

_“His family was the one I cared for before yours, so I was practically raised with him. He was my best friend, and somewhere along the way, I fell in love with him. I was just lucky he felt the same.” She seemed sad._

_“What happened?” Frank pushed._

_She sighed. “We tried to keep our relationship a secret, but it put strain on us. And when his parents found out about our relationship, that just caused us to fall apart. That was almost ten years ago now.” The silence that followed her words was suffocating, even Frank could feel it. “But I still love him,” she said, quietly, after a few moments._

_“How? You haven’t seen him in years,” he asked, hardly believing it._

_“Oh Frankie,” she laughed. “When you love someone, you never truly stop.”_

+++

Gerard avoids Frank with a passion for the next few weeks. And, as far as Frank knows, he avoids everyone. He stays locked in his room, only unlocking the door so maids can come in and gather his laundry, and force him to eat. The only reason Frank knows this is because Kitty tells him, and gives him a dirty look when she says it. Like Frank doesn’t feel enough guilt about it already.

His guilt is consuming him, as a matter of fact. He finds he can’t eat, and slowly, but surely, his clothes become looser and he has to find a maid to hem them. He barely leaves his room, too, only to teach lessons. But he does find himself eating dinner with the Ways more often, even if he doesn’t actually eat a majority of the time. He knows why he does it. He’s just there waiting for the evening where Gerard comes to sit across from him at the table.

It never happens.

“Mr. Frank,” Poppy sighs as she stares out the large bay window of the classroom, her face smushed against the frosted glass. It’s mid-October now, just a few weeks from Frank’s birthday, and Winter has decided to pay an early visit, if the mounds of still-falling snow outside are anything to go by. “Why can’t we go outside for today’s lesson?” she asks.

Frank rolls his eyes, but Poppy doesn’t see it. “There’s nearly a foot of snow out there, Poppy. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I’d be able to learn in such conditions,” he reasons. Poppy whirls around in her spot, looking at Frank with furrowed eyebrows and a childish pout.

“We should have a snow day, then!” she counters, causing Frank to shake his head fondly and motion for her to go back to her desk. She does without a fight, but she doesn’t look happy about the decision.

“There are no snow days when you’re homeschooled, Miss Poppy. Now, shall we continue our lesson about Mary Shelley’s _Frankenstein_?” It’s a rather advanced topic, but Frank loves the book even more than the girls seem to. He picks up a well-loved copy - his own personal copy - from his desk and thumbs open to the page they left off on.

When Frank dismisses the girls later on, Poppy immediately dashes from her seat and out the door, calling some flimsy excuse about needing to see her father about her snow clothes behind her back as she goes, causing Frank to chuckle at her fondly. But Lottie stays back, sitting in her desk slumped over, staring at the surface of the table blankly. Immediately, bells go off in Frank’s head that _something is wrong_ , so he strides over and crouches in front of her, a hand on the desk steadying himself.

“What’s the matter, Lottie?” he asks her. She still doesn’t look up.

And when she, her voice barely above a whisper, says, “I’m afraid Uncle hates me,” Frank feels his heart plummet into his stomach.

“Now why would you say such a thing?”

When Lottie looks up, Frank can see faint tear tracks lining her cheeks, and she reminds Frank of himself as a child intensely. And then, it clicks.

She probably reminds Gerard of Frank too.

“He’s been avoiding me,” she explains, and that only solidifies Frank’s ideas more.

“He’s been avoiding everyone,” he tries to say.

“But it’s not the same.” Lottie sighs, and wipes her cheeks. “I saw him in the hallway last night. I had a nightmare. I tried to talk to him, because I was scared and I know how he likes to hear stories of other people’s dreams and I was hoping telling him would make me feel better, but he just walked past me like I wasn’t even there,” she says, her voice hushed and still rather tearful.

It sems almost uncharacteristically mean, especially for Gerard. Frank tries not to think about what that implies.

He sighs and rubs Lottie’s arm comfortingly. “Your uncle and I had a… fight,” he says, hesitantly. He’s trying his best to hold the whole story in, not wanting to involve Lottie in such adult matters. But it feels so hard. He wants to tell someone everything, wants to scream it from the top of his lungs to _anyone_ who will listen, just to get it off his chest. But that person is not Lottie, he won’t let it be.

“What was it about?” she asks, looking up at him. Frank takes a deep breath.

“That’s not important. What’s important here is that it’s not you he’s mad at, it’s me,” he soothes.

Lottie takes the words in, thinking them over. She looks confused, but at least it’s better than her being upset, Frank figures.

“Can you just make sure he’s not mad at me?” she says, her voice quiet again.

Frank nods and pats her arm. “Of course.”

Lottie gets up and leaves then, and Frank stands at the window, staring out at the snow, thoughtful.

+++

The snow is gone by the next week, and Frank lies awake in bed, tossing and turning.

He’s been thinking of Gerard constantly, and more importantly, what he’s going to say to him to get across that he’s truly, honestly sorry. He’s thought about it for _hours_ and _hours_ on end, and when the only barrier he can find keeping him from Gerard is his own faith, he finds the fear that’s been ingrained in him is no match to how much he simply cares about Gerard, no less loves him. Because he does.

He loves every little thing about Gerard. From his hour long tangents about Greek mythology to his messy hair, right down to how he sometimes has the tendency to miss little social cues and often gets lost in his own head. Frank loves his misbuttoned waistcoats and his strangely spaced pinkies and his soft, round midsection and his strange, wonderful mind.

Frank loves Gerard. And there’s no force in the world that could keep him from knowing that, from acting upon it, he realizes.

He springs out of bed, throwing the sheets off of himself. They suddenly feel suffocating, and the room, as a whole, feels the same. Frank needs to find Gerard _now_ , needs to apologize for being an utter fool and tell Gerard how much he loves him. He needs it more than anything.

He pads down the winding hallways and passes the portrait of Gerard a fleeting glance as he makes his way to his first destination of inquiry; the library.

Gerard isn’t there. Frank peers in and doesn’t see him, and then he looks through the rows and rows of shelves and still doesn’t see him then. When it’s obvious that Gerard isn’t in there, he races from the room and looks for Gerard’s quarters. He has not the faintest clue as to where they are, but gets lucky in finding them towards the back of the manor, just a few doors down from the library.

The only reason Frank notices his room at all is the fact that it’s the only door in the hallway that’s wide open. And when he peers in, he sees it’s empty, the sheets of Gerard’s bed rumpled. Frank deflates.

On his way back to his room, he passes a large window with a perfect view of the back gardens. He peers up at the moon dejectedly, but the willow tree catches his eye not long after. And at the sight of a small, shadowed figure at the base of the tree, Frank scrambles to find the first door outside.

He’s running as soon as his feet hit the frosted ground, the air biting his skin with a chill despite the absence of snow outside. He briefly regrets not bringing a jacket or coat of some sort, but he can’t quite find it in himself to care all that much.

Gerard doesn’t look up, even as Frank grows more and more near. He pants, standing in front of Gerard for a good few seconds, waiting for him to react, but when he doesn’t, Frank sighs and sits down next to him.

“Can I speak to you?” Frank asks quietly, breaking the silence. Gerard still doesn’t look up. He’s still staring at the ground blankly. But he shrugs, at least letting Frank know he’s listening.

“Why not,” he responds, near silently.

“Please look at me,” Frank begs, needing to see his face if he’s going to do this. Gerard hesitates, blinking at the frosted grass. But he turns towards Frank, looking at him hollowly.

His eyes are sunken in and his face looks thinner than Frank’s ever seen it. It almost looks as if he’s lost more weight than Frank has over the past few weeks, which is more than concerning. His hair is a birds nest and it looks as if there’s no light, no life reflecting in his pupils.

And still, Frank finds Gerard completely and utterly beautiful to even simply look at.

“Gerard,” he sighs, only to be cut off by Gerard letting out a sharp, “Don’t.” Frank’s mouth snaps shut.

“Don’t tell me you’re worried about me or that I look terrible. I’ve already gotten an earful of that from Michael and Alicia.”

Frank gulps, not stopping himself as he stares at Gerard and shakes his head. “You don’t look terrible. You never could,” he responds. There’s a brief second where Gerard looks at Frank strangely, with a shocked expression, but it’s gone as soon as it’s there.

“I just wanted to apologize,” Frank elaborates. “I’ve taken time to think and I realized that- I-” He takes a deep breath, collecting his thoughts. “No matter how terrified of this I am, I can’t ignore how I feel for you any longer. I’m sorry for what I said, I hope you can forgive me,” he says, suddenly embarrassed.

The look on Gerard’s face grows more and more shocked with each word.

Suddenly, he’s lunging forward at Frank, and Frank doesn't even try to scramble back or resist. He wants this, he wants this _so much_.

Gerard’s lips are chapped and bitten, but no less soft and warm and wonderful on Frank’s. He sucks Frank’s bottom lip into his mouth quickly and bites down, just hard enough that it doesn’t hurt. Frank feels like he’s floating. He never imagined kissing someone could feel this.

He, of course, has kissed his fair share of girls in the past, but it has never been as good as this. Frank doesn’t think anything will be nearly as good after as Gerard. But truthfully, it’s not exactly like Frank really wants there to be an ‘after Gerard’.

The need for air separates the two of them, but Gerard lets his forehead gently knock into Frank’s, not quite ready to be so far from him yet. Frank yearns to have Gerard’s lips back on his, but he also understands the importance of needing to talk.

“Hello,” Gerard whispers, smiling. It’s rather anticlimactic, but Frank smiles back, almost involuntarily. He can’t seem to help it.

“Hello,” Frank responds back.

It’s sort of tricky to look at Gerard - his face is so close that Frank’s eyes go a bit cross trying to look at him - but truthfully, Frank doesn’t care. How had he never noticed Gerard’s sheer _beauty_ before?

“Is this- I mean, are you alright with all of this?” Gerard stutters, a flash of concern crossing his face. Frank nods, at least, to the best of his ability.

“I will admit,” he answers, his voice hushed. “That I’m scared. Absolutely terrified. But…”

“But..?” Gerard parrots.

And Frank lets his smile grow just a bit wider. “When I look at you, all that fear seems to vanish.”

Even from so close, Frank can see the utter love shining in Gerard’s eyes, and to know that it’s directed at him makes Frank’s heart stutter.

Almost instantaneously, Gerard is kissing him again, and the feeling is sweeter than Frank could have ever possibly imagined.

+++

They stumble into the house sometime later, fingers frosted but faces warm and pink, mostly just because a large portion of their time outside was spent with their faces pressed together, through kissing or simply from the want - nay, the _need_ \- to be closer to one another. Gerard grasps Frank’s hand in his the minute they stand up, and he doesn’t unwind their fingers even when they walk into the manor through the same door Frank had come through earlier. Somehow, it seems to make their situation all the more real. And somehow, it doesn’t bother Frank or cause him fear nearly as much as he first expected it to.

Gerard tugs Frank along silently, bringing him down winding hallways that Frank still has yet to master navigating. Frank almost thinks that Gerard has forgotten he’s there, and with how Gerard is sometimes, Frank wouldn’t be the least surprised to find that he actually did. But when they pass the girls’ hallway, and consequently Frank’s quarters, Gerard turns around to look at Frank with a playful expression, squeezing Frank’s fingers lightly. Frank doesn’t comment, despite not really knowing where any of this is leading. He just squeezes back, and continues on with Gerard.

Eventually, they make their way to the hallway containing the library, and Gerard tugs Frank down it until they’re at his room. Gerard shuts the door behind them, and a sudden wave of awkwardness hits Frank. They’re _in Gerard’s room_. Now the only question is; why?

Gerard turns around to look at Frank slowly, smiling. But Frank can still see the mischievous glint in his eyes, so when Gerard strides over to him and kisses him fiercely, Frank is partially expecting it.

But only partially.

They go toppling onto Gerard’s bed, and suddenly, all Frank feels is _Gerard_ , all around him. On top of him, next to him, everywhere. It’s pleasant, more than pleasant, and Frank takes deep breaths through his nose only so he can kiss Gerard longer.

He threads his hands through Gerard’s hair, messy as always, and almost tries to pull Gerard infinitely closer. He’s hit with the overwhelming sense of _need_ for the other man, especially the need to be as close as physically possible. Gerard is heavy, but his weight feels good on Frank. Solid, real.

Gerard shifts his hips not even a millimeter, and it’s then that Frank realizes his cock is almost painfully hard, his pants tenting just the slightest bit as he strains under them. And strangest of all, he doesn’t feel an ounce of shame from it. How can he feel shame, when everything in this moment feels so right?

Loving Gerard doesn’t seem wrong in the slightest.

Suddenly, a hand slips under Frank’s nightclothes, cold as its fingers trail up his torso, and it’s like he has a sudden, irrevocable change of character.

Frank immediately pulls his mouth away from Gerard and tries to escape, to get far, far away so he can feel the hot flush of shame without anyone noticing or caring, but it’s hard to do when Gerard is still very much on top of him. It feels like he’s suffocating all over again, but it doesn’t feel good or even easily fixable this time around.

“Frankie?” Gerard asks, his voice barely audible through his heavy panting. “What’s wrong, my love?”

Frank doesn’t talk, and refuses to even look at Gerard. He doesn’t want Gerard to see that there’s any element of this that he regrets, because he knows how Gerard will react. Despite the preprogrammed feeling of disgust and shame piling up inside of him, Frank can imagine no worse fate than seeing Gerard unhappy because of him, especially now that he’s seen the effects for himself.

And it’s not just shame, he realizes. He’s terrified. Absolutely petrified of what Gerard was insinuating they do. That, possibly, he can get away with admitting without feeling even worse.

“I’m sorry, I-I can’t-” he stutters, the words familiar on his tongue from the last time they had such a conversation.

“What can you not do? Please, talk to me this time,” Gerard begs, and the sadness lacing his every word is enough to get Frank to look at him. When he does, he sees that Gerard isn’t looking at him in pity. He looks concerned for Frank’s well being, plain and simple.

“I don’t want anything farther than what we were doing. I can’t do any more than that, I’m sorry,” Frank admits. Gerard’s face softens above him, and he sits up, finally allowing Frank to move. He doesn’t shuffle completely away from Gerard, though, despite his previous thoughts.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Gerard coos. In other moments, Frank would feel babied or demeaned by such words in such a tone. But hearing it from Gerard, it’s completely different. An arm comes around Frank’s shoulders and tugs him towards Gerard, his soft body heat somewhat of a comfort. Frank snuggles closer into him, unabashed.

“I will never, _ever_ make you do something you aren’t comfortable with, alright? You just have to _tell me_ ,” He stresses, and plants a gentle kiss to Frank’s hair. Frank nods, burying his face into Gerard’s shoulder, and falls asleep more soundly than he has in what feels like years.

+++

Frank wakes up unusually warm, but it’s not uncomfortable.

The sun is almost blinding as it shines through a thin gap in the curtains, and it causes Frank to resign himself to a fate of blinking himself awake. At once, he notices that this is not his room, and as soon as that realization hits him, the memories of last night fall onto him twice as hard.

There’s an arm wrapped around Frank’s waist, the fingers feather-light on the exposed skin of Frank’s belly where his shirt has ridden up in the night, and a solid warmth behind him that he mindlessly shuffles closer to. He doesn’t turn around, though, because seeing Gerard’s face there will just make this all so much more real once more, and Frank truly isn’t ready to handle that so early in the morning.

But he doesn’t get much of a choice, not when Gerard is grunting once, twice, and then finally sighing into Frank’s hair, his hand beginning to move and it runs up and down Frank’s belly, caressing the skin gently.

Frank finds, though, that it isn’t bad. He doesn’t feel guilty, or shameful, or afraid. There’s not even an underlying hint of it anywhere in Frank’s brain. For once in his natural born life, he feels completely at peace, and completely loved.

He rolls around, tucking his face into the pillow as Gerard comes into view, smiling so brightly at Frank that it seems to outshine the sun, which is becoming less and less irritating to Frank’s eyes the longer he stays awake.

“Good morning, my love,” Gerard hums, his voice scratchy from overnight disuse. The situation is hopelessly mundane, but Frank laughs.

“And a good morning to you, dearest,” he sighs back. Despite Gerard’s rather atrocious morning breath, Frank still leans in and captures his lips in a soft, gentle kiss, and couldn’t imagine wanting to do anything else in the world at that moment.

“I’ve dreamt about this, you know,” Gerard says. Frank quirks an eyebrow.

“About what?”

Gerard pulls a hand away from Frank, waving up in the air with a explanatory gesture. “Us, this, together. Waking up with you by my side in the morning.”

“That sounds like an awfully mundane dream to have,” Frank repeats his thoughts from earlier.

“Yes, maybe so,” Gerard leans forward to kiss Frank once more, quick and sudden. “But there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing.”

It’s a good few minutes filled with nothing but gentle kisses, loving caresses, and hushed snippets of conversation later that Frank realizes he actually has to get up and teach a lesson today. Gerard seems reluctant to let him go, but eventually, with one last kiss, he snakes his arm back from Frank’s waist and lets him up off the bed.

“I’ll be down to the lesson in about an hour,” Gerard yawns, cozying himself up in his bedsheets, while Frank turns and leans down, planting a kiss to Gerard’s tangled nest of hair. “I just need a few more minutes of beauty sleep.”

“You’re already quite beautiful enough, love,” Frank hears himself saying, but he doesn’t remember himself moving his mouth to shape the words. And still, the smile that graces Gerard’s face as he presses it further into his pillow is enough to not let Frank regret the decision.

“You can never be too beautiful!” Gerard calls out as Frank leaves the room, causing Frank to erupt in a fit of giggles as he makes his way down the ever-familiar hallways.

And, Frank realizes once he makes it back to his quarters, preparing to get dressed for the day, he didn’t get lost even once when making his way back from Gerard’s room.

+++

Things, after that, don’t change a considerable amount. Frank still wakes up in the mornings - oftentimes in Gerard’s bed, now. Gerard is a sinfully good person to fall asleep next to and cuddle - and he still teaches the girls their lessons- though, when Gerard decides to attend the lessons, he proves to be more of a distraction to Frank than usual. The only thing that really changes is the stolen kisses between meetings in the halls, and Gerard’s attendance at dinner each night, so long as Frank is sitting next to him at the table.

Lottie nor Poppy seem to notice anything amiss from their tutor and their uncle’s relationship, and for that, Frank is secretly grateful. He has no doubt that Poppy would be asking him when him and Gerard are to be wed every single day, despite knowing she shouldn’t ask such a thing.

Alicia, truly, is the first of the Ways to even acknowledge Frank and Gerard’s relationship, and even that is just in the form of a gentle pat on Frank’s shoulder one evening after dinner, after Gerard had been telling a story, and had gestured wildly with Frank’s hand still clasped tightly and warmly in his.

Michael, though, is not as nonverbal about it, surprisingly.

People rarely visit Frank in his study - but really, for the record, _Frank_ barely visits his own study - so the knock on his door one afternoon is a bit of a shock. The girls, when they were having lunch, never seem to finish before Frank did, so he doesn’t expect it to be them. Gerard is always his second idea, but again, Gerard never seems to finish lunch before Frank.  

But it reveals to be Michael, and Frank is in no position to turn him down, despite the instantaneous rise of bile in his throat.

Michael is still intimidating, even if Frank knows that he’s rather mild-mannered. He’s still all tall and gangly limbs, much like a spider of some sort, and he might not look lordly, but his face is still full of sharp angles and naturally-sour expressions. Even looking at him gives Frank a sudden, inexplicable sense of dread.

“I hope I’m not interrupting something,” Michael says, yet he still sits down in the armchair near Frank’s bookcase, posture poised and legs crossed. Frank shakes his head, putting his quill back into its inkwell.

“No,” he breathes, “not at all. I was just- working, on something,” he stutters out, for lack of anything better to say. Michael nods once, tersely, folding his hands on his bony knees. Everything about him in that moment radiates a feeling of underlying stress, or frustration. One would first assume that this is just the natural expression of someone with as tiring as a role as being a lord is, but Frank can see past the facade of it, despite not being thinly-veiled in the first place.

“Good, that’s good. I wanted to speak with you about something.”

Frank feels his heart leap into his throat, and simply tries his best to not let it show on his face. He nods. _This is it_ , he thinks, _I’ve lost the best job I’ve ever had mere months into having it_.

“About Gerard,” Michael clarifies, and all Frank can think is that Alicia had lied to him to make him feel better. Of course Michael could never have a sinner teaching his children. The logic behind him keeping his own brother around his children and how that doesn’t make sense when Frank and Gerard are one in the same in that regard hits Frank suddenly, but then the fact that Frank could never box Gerard in the same way as himself hits him too. Gerard’s not a sinner, and Frank could never, ever see him as such.

“Oh?” Frank asks. He feigns calmness and shuffles the papers around on his desk, just so he doesn’t have to look at Michael.

“I know that, being the younger sibling, I’m really in no position to be saying this, but,” he hesitates, sparking Frank’s interest. Maybe this isn’t going where he thought it was at all. “Just, please don’t hurt him, Frank.”

Frank looks up, then, his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth pulled into a tight line. Now, he’s just plain confused. This didn’t go where he thought it would at _all_.

“Gerard is - I’m not going to tiptoe around this - he’s odd. Completely and utterly peculiar. I’m sure you know this already. But this leads to him getting carried away with things, falling for people he maybe shouldn’t, and just generally being reckless, especially when it comes to his romantic life. Just don’t hurt him, is all I ask.”

And immediately, Frank shakes his head. “Never,” he says. “I don’t think I could, even if I wanted to.”

Frank didn’t know Michael could smile, but he’s proven wrong. The smile Michael gives him is small, barely a pull of the lips. But, if Frank is correct, it means a lot. If anything, it quells just a bit of the anxiety Frank feels around Michael.

“You’re a good man, Frank,” Michael says as he stands up, clapping Frank on the back as he makes a move to leave.

Later that evening, when Frank is tucked deeply under the covers of Gerard’s bed and Gerard is clamoring in, flopping down practically on top of Frank, he thinks back to the conversation.

“Michael spoke with me today.” Frank feels the vibrations of Gerard’s groan reverberate throughout his body, what with Gerard’s leg crossed over his, and half his torso on Frank’s. It’s only the slightest bit uncomfortable. But mostly, it’s rather nice.

“Please don’t tell me he gave you a talk about not hurting me, or some other asinine thing,” he mumbles into Frank’s chest. Frank brings a hand up and caressing his hair, smoothing it down as he laughs.

“You must know your brother well.”

Gerard groans again.

Suddenly, Frank gets a sick feeling in his belly. “Do you-” he stutters. “Does Mikey have to have this conversation with people often?”

Gerard shoots up, looking at Frank with a worried gaze. Frank is sure Gerard can almost feel the jealousy, the worry, radiating off of him, but it isn’t like he’s doing much to hide it.

“Frank, dearest, no,” he says, putting a hand to Frank’s cheek. “Don’t think things like that. Yes, I’ve had partners in the past, but.” He stops to collect his thoughts, and to lean down and press a kiss to Frank’s forehead. “I’ve never had something like this, with anyone like you. I’ve never felt like this for anyone ever before.” His voice is gentle and quiet, and Frank’s fear dissipates. He understands, he understands completely.

“I’ve never felt anything like this for anyone before either,” he respond. The smile Gerard gives him makes Frank feel a certain sense of warm inside, and he can barely hold back when he pulls Gerard down, kissing him hungrily in a way he never had before. It’s not entirely unpleasant. Really, it’s not unpleasant in the slightest.

+++

Gerard brushes Frank’s hair away from his face, smiling down at him from his perched position above Frank, his elbows plastered at the sides of Frank’s head. It’d been a rough day; both of the girls had been in terrible moods that had only seen to rub off on Frank during their lesson, and Kitty had been sick, making Frank’s day rather hard to get through without her playful banter to take Frank’s mind off of work. But, as always, Gerard was there, making Frank feel immediately better with his mere presence.

“Enjoying the view?” Frank gloats. Gerard’s grin grows cheeky.

“I always do,” he reasons, before leaning down and kissing Frank fiercely. Over the past few days, Frank’s noticed the passion between himself and Gerard has grown more open, more intense - kisses are no longer brief and sweet, but are rather hungry and, dare Frank say it, lust-filled - and surprisingly, Frank no longer feels disgust or shame when it happens. The thought that nothing with Gerard could ever be shameful is growing stronger and more resolute in Frank’s mind.

One of Gerard’s hands finds its way under Frank’s nightshirt, and this time, Frank doesn’t resist it. Gerard’s hand feels warm and heavy on Frank’s belly, running up and down his flushed skin with eagerness. Their lips are spit-slicked and kisses are open-mouthed, and when Gerard’s teeth clash accidentally against Frank’s a few times, Frank is only more pushed on by it, rather than curbed. Frank, in a sudden moment of boldness, slips his tongue into Gerard’s mouth, and feels rewarded when Gerard moans into Frank’s mouth.

But it doesn’t seem to last long, when Gerard pulls away and looks down at Frank. His face is flushed and his lips are bitten and shiny with spit. Frank feels a hardness grow in his pants.

“Are you sure this is alright? Are you okay with this?” he asks Frank, and Frank barely holds in a laugh.

“Yes,” he sighs, attempting to pull Gerard back down by threading a hand into his hair. “Now, please, less talking.”

Gerard smiles, and kisses Frank once. “Of course,” he giggles. “Of course.”

Instead of kissing Frank’s lips, Gerard bends down to attach his mouth to Frank’s neck, nipping at a particular spot behind Frank’s ear. He makes his way down Frank’s neck, leaving a trail of spit as he goes, until he’s attempting to suck a bruise at the skin where Frank’s neck meets his shoulders. Frank’s been on the giving end of such an action many times, but never the receiving. And never with anyone as pretty as Gerard.

“Pretty, so, so pretty,” Frank pants out, voicing his thoughts. Gerard doesn’t react verbally, but Frank can feel the smile against his neck.

As he kisses and sucks at Frank’s throat, Gerard begins to unbutton his shirt as well, fumbling the buttons with his nimble, thin fingers. He doesn’t seem to get far, especially not with one hand, so he sits up and works on removing Frank’s shirt with both of his hands. Frank’s just about to complain about the lack of Gerard’s lips on his throat, but is suddenly silenced when Gerard sits in his lap, pressing down on Frank’s hardened cock. _Oh, mercy me._

Once Gerard is able to unbutton Frank’s shirt, and Frank shuffles out of it, Gerard seems to fall into a trance, staring down at Frank’s chest.

“You have a tattoo?” Gerard sighs, almost as if it’s a question.

“I got it when I was young. I worked at a shipyard, when I was 19. I got it then,” he explains, trying to shift around underneath Gerard as if to get some sort of friction. Gerard’s hand trails mindlessly over the drawing of a flame, right over Frank’s heart, tracing the design. “Please, Gerard,” Frank practically moans, and it seems to spur Gerard into action, because he removes his hand from Frank’s chest, and unbuttons his own shirt. Frank notes the absence of warmth that Gerard removing his hand causes.

But he can hardly focus on that when the milky softness that is Gerard’s torso is revealed to Frank. Suddenly, Frank’s tongue feels heavy and dry in his mouth, choking him up. Gerard has _nipples rings._ Frank wants to reach up and bring the sensitive pink buds down to his mouth immediately, and taste the cold metal under his tongue.

Gerard must see Frank thinking this, or something of the sort, because he laughs and leans down, his chest mere inches from Frank’s face.

“Just like you would do with a lady,” Gerard whispers, tugging at Frank’s hair gently. In the back of Frank’s throat erupts a rather embarrassing moan.

“But you’re certainly not like any lady I’ve ever met,” Frank somehow manages to say. The sound Gerard makes in response is somewhere between a laugh and a whimper.

Frank can’t hold back any longer, and he leans up just the slightest bit to put his mouth around Gerard’s nipple, swirling his tongue around it. The cold metal of the rings becomes hot under Frank’s tongue, the taste of metal blending with the taste of sweat on Gerard’s skin. Gerard moans particularly loud, and it’s then that Frank realizes how much the sounds Gerard makes makes him grow impossibly harder. Frank needs his pants off, and he needs them off _now_. He’s sure Gerard feels the same.

“Gerard, please,” Frank mutters. “I need them off.” His vocabulary isn’t really up to par, right now, but he figures it’s to be expected.

“Your pants?”

Frank nods furiously, and Gerard shuffles only a little bit, somehow removing both Frank and his own night pants in a flourish, leaving the both of them in just their undergarments. Frank is rather impressed.

“Better?” Gerard asks, smiling triumphantly.

“Much,” Frank responds.

It’s not long before Gerard’s hand is crawling down Frank’s torso and making its way into his undergarments, touching Frank’s member with feather-light touches, spreading around the precome leaking out of Frank. He lets out a stifled moan as Gerard begins to move his hand up and down Frank. It’s almost like those flash moments where Frank would masturbate himself, but it’s _so_ much better.

Frank can see the outline of Gerard’s bulge in Gerard’s own underwear, and Frank, with little thought behind the action, reaches forward and pulls Gerard’s underwear down, his own cock flushed and springing free. Frank’s never been more sexually aroused in his entire life, it almost feels painful. Gerard barely gives Frank pulling down his underwear any acknowledgement, and is instead focused on thrusting his fist up and down on Frank’s member in a conscious, pleasing pattern.

He doesn’t acknowledge it, that is, until Frank can see an idea growing on his face, and then, he’s suddenly angling himself so he can rub his cock against Frank’s, the both of them beginning to rut up against each other with newfound purpose. The feeling of another man’s cock with his is strange, Frank will admit, but seemingly, it is in no way unenjoyable.

Gerard’s moans are like music to Frank’s ears, and he can barely keep his hands off the other man. He keeps them firmly at his waist, squeezing at the soft, pale flesh there when something feels particularly enjoyable. Which, of course, begins happening more and more often the closer to his climax Frank grows. He’s almost afraid he’s going to leave purple marks in the shape of fingerprints on Gerard’s waist, but with the noises and the moans of such things like, “More,” and “So beautiful, Frankie,” coming out of Gerard’s mouth, Frank hardly believes Gerard will mind much.

With little warning, Gerard removes a hand from where it’d been firmly planted on Frank’s shoulders, and brings his fingers up to his mouth, sticking them in and swirling his tongue around the digits. Frank tries to ask what he’s doing, but his brain feels like mush and his mouth doesn’t want to seem to work with the words he’s trying to say.

“I want to try something, okay, Frankie?” Gerard asks once he pulls his fingers from his mouth with an obscene pop. Frank doesn’t even attempt to begin to know what Gerard wants to try, but he still nods and wraps his hand around both his and Gerard’s cocks when Gerard stops rutting against Frank furiously.

Gerard moves his hand down Frank’s body and slips it behind him, massaging the flesh of his ass only for a second. Frank barely is given a moment to think before Gerard is slipping one of his fingers inside of him, and Frank feels all rational thought leave his mind. Having a finger inside of him is only uncomfortable for a moment, but then Gerard begins moving it around, crooking it and rubbing at Frank’s walls.

After a few moments of Gerard seemingly searching for something inside of Frank, it’s almost as if he presses a little button that sends Frank into complete ecstasy. His whole body goes tingly, from his head to his toes, and he can’t help the pleased moan that escapes him. Gerard smiles and hums, and begins rubbing that spot over and over again, eventually adding a second finger. Frank tries to keep up a consistent pace as he continues to flick his wrist up and down both of their cocks, but he finds it near impossible when he’s so close to his edge. Gerard must be too, he can tell, because his member seems to twitch sporadically in Frank’s hand.

“‘m gonna come,” Frank mumbles, leaning down to nip and kiss at Gerard’s shoulder. Gerard nods, still working his fingers inside of Frank.

“Come, my love,” he says, and that’s all it takes to set Frank off, his whole body shaking with how hard he comes. Thick, white ropes of liquid spurt onto Gerard’s belly, and it doesn’t take Gerard long to do the same, his come mingling with Frank’s. It’s oddly errotic.

When he finishes riding out the last of his aftershock, Gerard flops down onto Frank, and they both seem to let out grunts when their over-sensitive skin touches one another, but neither of them make any moves to get away from each other. In fact, Frank just brings an uneasy arm up,  and begins running his fingers though Gerard’s hair. The come pressed between them is unpleasant and sticky, and Gerard’s nipple rings feel cold against Frank’s flushed chest, but the familiar, comforting weight of Gerard on top of him makes Frank rethink his decision to tell Gerard to move.

“Are you okay?” Gerard whispers into Frank’s skin, after a few decisive moments, their heavy breathing being the only sound to fill the room.

“That might just have been,” Frank pants, still not completely recovered, “the most pleasurable thing I’ve ever experienced.” And he means it. Never before has he ever gotten so much pleasure out of a girl, out of someone who wasn’t Gerard.

He can’t see it, but Frank feels Gerard smile against his skin, right before Gerard leans up to turn out the light of the lantern at Frank’s bedside table, throwing a blanket overtop of them as he snuggles into Frank’s side.

And this, Frank decides, is well worth any shame or regret that might sneak up on him in the morning. But, really, he has a sneaking suspicion that it won’t.

+++

Frank can’t seem to keep his hands off of Gerard, after that. He knows it’s probably wrong, and inappropriate, but he can’t seem to help it. A completely new world has been opened up to him, and Frank finds himself getting lost in it.

Of course, they have to be careful. Around the manor, the two act like nothing has changed. But behind closed, safe doors, Frank finds himself more often than not immediately attacking Gerard’s already-bruise-covered neck. Gerard complains about the bruises, how difficult they are to hide, but he never scolds Frank with real malice.

Their new escapades seem to include trying to find more and more public areas in the manor to take each other in, without getting caught or noticed. They’re currently in a linen closet towards the empty servants quarters, and Gerard is down on his knees in front of Frank, his mouth warm and slick around Frank’s cock. Frank keeps an arm over his mouth, as to not alert anyone to their presence in the closet. He threads his other hand through Gerard’s hair, tugging at it when something is exceedingly pleasurable. That seems to be becoming a habit for him.

“Gee, ‘m gonna, fuck,” Frank murmurs, trying to tug at Gerard’s hair to pull him away. But Gerard stays resolute, and licks at the vein on the underside of Frank’s cock, humming. The vibrations send jolts through Frank, and mere seconds later, Frank comes into Gerard’s mouth.

When Gerard swallows it all down, Frank nearly thinks he’s going to become hard again. But he doesn’t, and he instead pulls Gerard up to kiss him fiercely. The taste of himself on Gerard’s tongue is strange, salty, but not necessarily terrible. It doesn’t make him remove his tongue from Gerard’s mouth, at least.

Gerard laughs when he breaks away, and plants a wet kiss to Frank’s cheek. “It’s so attractive when you swear,” he giggles, his nose nudging at Frank’s pinkened cheek.

“Fuck,” Frank groans, trying to will down the boner that’s beginning to grow again. He puts his hand down to Gerard’s cock, only to find it’s no longer hard, the front of Gerard’s underwear feeling hot and sticky. “Did I do that?” he huffs out in a laugh. Gerard practically purrs.

“You caused me to come in my pants, yes,” he laughs out. “It’s quite embarrassing, actually.”

Frank pulls away from him, afraid to see a look of shame. But Gerard is smiling sweetly, and pushing hair back from Frank’s face, curling a strand around his finger. There’s a sudden warm feeling blooming in Frank’s chest , and words are falling from his mouth before he can stop them.

“God almighty, I love you,” he says, his eyes caught in Gerard’s. He can see Gerard’s pupils dilate when Frank says the words, the black overtaking the shining hazel.

“I love you too, fuck,” Gerard groans, immediately kissing Frank once more. But it’s no longer sexual or driven by lust. It’s passionate, but in a way that’s somehow also sweet, and filled with love. Gerard moves from Frank’s mouth to plant kisses all over his face. On Frank’s cheeks, on his nose, on his forehead, and everywhere in between, all while muttering, “I love you, I love you, I love you,” over and over again.

And despite the sheet that’s threatening to fall off the shelf over top of his head, Frank has never felt warmer, or more loved in his life.

+++

_There are times where Frank wished his brothers were supportive of him, cared about him. This was certainly one of those times._

_He was almost 17 years of age, he shouldn’t have still been nursing a bruised eye from his father and a painful, stinging slap on his cheek from his mother. He would defend himself, but even in his adulthood, he still remained scrawny and small, barely taller than his mother. If his brothers cared for him, they would stand up for him, many of them larger than both of their parents. But they didn’t, and Frank was left to fend for himself._

_His mother’s eyes were boring into him fiercely, her mouth pulled into a tight, angry frown. Her hair was a mess from her rampage against Frank, and Frank’s father stood behind her with a similar expression, his arms crossed over his chest intimidatingly. That was hardly fair, two against one. Plus, Frank thought he hardly deserved such treatment for voicing his opinion about them removing Jamia from their home. They knew how much she meant to Frank, how she was practically the only real motherly figure in his life, and they ripped her away from him without warning. Frank might have exploded at them about it, but they deserved it. They had no right to get rid of Jamia, she never did anything wrong._

_Except, they did. And they were abusing their power completely._

_“I’ll give you one warning, boy,” his mother practically growled. “If you do not apologize, I’ll send you to the street with that_ pig _of a housemaid.”_

_And something in Frank snapped._

_Gathering what strength he still contained, he lunged towards his mother, bringing a sharp sting down onto her cheek, hopefully just as painful as the one she’d given him. Frank could see his father step forward, but neither him nor his mother stopped Frank, or made any move to do anything to him._

_“Don’t you_ ever _talk about her like that_ ever again! _” he shouted at her blank, shocked stare. “She’s been more of a mother to me than you could ever dream of being! So don’t you dare insult her, not to my face.”_

_His mother stared at him for only a few more seconds. Frank could see the vein in her forehead bulging threateningly._

_“Get out of my house!” she screeched so loud, Frank and his father both jumped._

_Frank didn’t think as he rushed out of the den and up the stairs to his room, finding a cotton knapsack and throwing anything he could find that he would think would be important. He didn’t look as the few remaining brothers left in the house peered out of their rooms into the hallway curiously at Frank as he rushed by. He barely escaped his mother throwing a vase at his head as he left through the front doors._

_Despite everything that’d happened within those last few hours, Frank felt freer than he ever had in his life, leaving his childhood home. He took a deep breath, rubbed at the stinging red mark on his cheek, and walked down the pathway that led away from the manor._

+++

Christmas arrives before Frank realizes it, and it’s the first Christmas Frank can remember spending with people he cared about, people he considered _family_ , in a long, long time.

Gerard’s head on Frank’s shoulder is heavy, and solid, and familiar, and Frank is overwhelmed with the feeling of wanting to plant a kiss to the crown of his head. The girls are too intently focused on opening their presents under the tree to see them, so Frank does, the familiar scent of Gerard’s soap permeating his nose.

Gerard looks up at Frank, his smile so wide it almost looks like it hurts. The glow of the roaring fire in front of them makes Gerard’s cheeks look pink, his eyes looking like two burning embers, and Frank has never been more in love with anyone in his life.

Poppy lets out a gasp, drawing practically everyone in the room’s attention to her.

“This box made a noise!” she squeals, pointing at a particularly large box. Frank looks at it quizzically.

“A noise?” Alicia asks. Her tone sounds worried, and when Frank glances over, both she and Michael look just a bit hesitant. Poppy nods.

“I heard it too,” Lottie solidifies her sister’s claims. Frank is even more confused.

“Ah,” Gerard hums, shuffling out from under Frank’s arm so he can join the girls on the ground, gently pulling the box towards him. He looks up to Frank, waving a hand and pulling Frank down when he stutters. “This is for you.” he smiles, pushing the box towards Frank. He looks at Gerard curiously, hands lingering on the lid of the box. He pulls it off with an unsure movement, only to reveal two sleeping puppies at the bottom of it.

“You got me puppies?” he asks, looking up at Gerard. Gerard nods, and shrugs.

“You mentioned you liked dogs,” he says, as if it’s no big deal. But really, for anyone to get him anything means the world to Frank.

“Puppies!” Poppy shouts as she peers over the rim of the box, pulling out one of the round-bellied dogs. It stays asleep, shifting in Poppy’s arm as she coos at it. Lottie reaches in, and grabs the other one.

“You two can name them, if you’d like,” Frank suggests to the girls, who both seem to light up him. They chat idly about names, and Frank turns back to Gerard, who’s still looking at Frank with admirability.

“There’s something else in there, you know.” Gerard gestures his head in the direction of the box, and Frank looks back down into it. The room is dark, only lit by the fire and some scattered candles, so he nearly misses it the first few times he sees it. But, when Frank sees a small shape in the corner of the box, he plucks it out and turns it over in his hands.

It’s a wooden box, Frank sees, painted black. He’s confused, of course, because it’s rather unassuming. Why would Gerard just give him a wooden box? But when he looks at Gerard and Gerard gestures for him to open it, he decides that there’s little else for him to do.

Nestled between two velveteen pillows inside the box, is a golden ring, glinting beautifully in the light of the fire. Frank feels all words get caught in his throat.

“Gerard, I-” Frank stutters, but is cut off before he can finish his thought. Though, he doesn’t think that’s really a bad thing at all, because he can hardly collect his thoughts right now.

“I know it’s not the most traditional way to propose, but, I figured nothing about us is very traditional at all,” Gerard laughs, wrapping his hands around Frank’s where they rest around the box, Frank’s fingers gripping it so tightly his knuckles are white. Frank can hear both Alicia and Michael gasp in the background, and he hears Poppy let out a gentle squeal behind them, but in the moment, it feels like him and Gerard are the only two people in the room.

“So?” Gerard asks when Frank doesn’t respond. “Will you marry me?

And all Frank can seem to do is laugh. He throws a hand over his mouth, nodding vigorously. Gerard’s face practically lights up as he slips the ring onto Frank’s finger, sliding it on perfectly.

+++

Frank twists the ring around his finger for what is probably the thousandth time since he’s received it a week ago. It’s become sort of a habit, Frank’s found, mindlessly twisting the ring around his finger. He does it all the time; when he’s teaching, when he’s working on lesson planning, when he’s at dinner, and even when he’s with Gerard. The metal had been cold when he first received it, but now, it’s warm, matching Frank’s body temperature. The only time it ever grows any warmer is when Gerard plants gentle kisses on it at night, when they’re going to bed. He seems just as infatuated with it as Frank is.

It’s a simple band, when Frank looks at it. Made of gold, with few other details than that. The only other real details seem to be the four, small, ingrained diamonds on the band, which glint when Frank rotates it.

Gerard sneaks up behind him then, wrapping his arms around Frank’s waist as he plants his chin onto Frank’s shoulder, causing Frank to jump. He hears Gerard laugh behind him, but he doesn’t give him the satisfaction of turning around, and grumbles to himself quietly, which only causes Gerard to laugh more.

“What are you doing in here?” Gerard asks, once his laughter has died down. “You never came to bed. I was worried.”

Frank frowns, and finally turns around in Gerard’s arms. He hadn’t meant to make him worry.

“I’m sorry,” he sighs. “I wanted to see the moon. It’s full tonight.” He gestures out the window he’d been peering out at, where the moon shines through dolefully. Gerard hums, glancing up at the sky. He doesn’t seem to be able to hold his gaze there for long, though, and seems much more intent on looking at Frank. It causes a warm feeling to bubble up in the pit of his belly.

“She does look quite beautiful,” he hums, but he’s still looking at Frank when he says it.

But then, Gerard looks away, seemingly not able to hold Frank’s gaze. “I-” he stutters, “I need to tell you something.”

Frank peers up at him curiously, but nods as he tilts his head to the side. He can’t say that he’s not suddenly worried, but he trusts Gerard.

“There’s another reason why I proposed to you so suddenly, other than just wanting to,” he sighs. “I’ve been taking a break, these past few months. From my job. And therefore, things have been piling up on me, the longer I’ve taken a break,” he explains, drawing more of Frank’s curiosity.

Frank nods. “Alright…”

“And I was offered a job, multiple actually, months ago. I’ve been putting them off, so I could spend more time with you, and with the girls and Michael and with Alicia. But now, the families who have hired me are all growing impatient and I-” Gerard stop suddenly, his arms around Frank’s waist tightening. “I need to travel to The Continent. The several families who have hired me are from around The Continent. I can’t wait any longer,” he says, all in one breath.

Frank feels himself freeze. “For how long?” he somehow manages to ask, even though he feels himself begin to shake in Gerard’s arms. He wants to get out of Gerard’s embrace, but at the same time, he can’t seem to make himself do so.

Gerard looks even more pained than Frank feels. “For two years. Maybe more.”

And Frank feels his heart plummet into his stomach.

Gerard lets him go, then, and Frank takes the opportunity willingly. He feels sick. He’s just gotten the best thing in his life, just accepted that he could be _happy_ , and he’s losing him in an instant. Frank gulps.

“When do you leave?”

“Next week.” Gerard seems hesitant to answer. Frank understands the feeling completely, because seemingly, it makes the situation that much worse. But he nods, and decides to handle this as an adult. He walks forward, and takes Gerard’s hands in his own, squeezing them gently.

“I will never punish you for living your dream, you hear me?” Frank says, trying to keep his tone steady and solid. “It will make me the happiest man alive to know the man I love is out in the world, drawing these beautiful portraits and doing what he loves. Don’t misconstrue my words, I will miss you terribly, but the pain of missing you will be quelled by the knowledge that you are doing what you love, and that you will return to me.”

Gerard blinks at Frank a few times, before leaning down and kissing him, his lips on Frank’s sad and loving; Frank can feel it through the kiss, no matter how impossible that seems.

“I will come back to you, alright Frankie?” Gerard says once he’s pulled away, his hands warm as they cup Frank’s cheeks. Frank nods. “I promise you, I will come back to you.”

All Frank can do is hope that Gerard will keep his promise.

+++

They spend the next week practically attached at the hip. They read books together in the library when Frank gets free time from lessons, they hold hands under the table at dinner, and they spend their time at night either passionately exploring each other’s bodies, or curled up and wrapped around each other so tightly, it’s almost uncomfortable. But despite all the time they spend together, Gerard stops attending the girls’ lessons by Thursday, much to the disappointment of not only Poppy and Lottie, but Frank as well. At least Frank’s new dogs - who the girls have decided to name Gunner and Belle respectively - seem to keep at least the girls in good spirits.

And by early Saturday morning, Gerard and Frank are kissing in bed sensually, their last kisses for quite a while. Both of them know the carriage taking Gerard to the docks in town - where he shall board a ship to take him to his first stop in France - will be arriving soon, but neither of them seem to want to acknowledge the fact.

Gerard begins trailing his lips up and down Frank’s neck, sucking particularly hard, most likely in an attempt to mark up Frank as his own, as he trails a gentle hand down Frank’s body until he’s lazily jerking his hand up and down Frank’s length. It’s barely sexually arousing, quite honestly, with how Frank can’t seem to stop thinking of his lover’s imminent departure. But he ruts into Gerard’s hand just a few times, before he comes. He quickly reciprocates the action on Gerard’s member, flicking his wrist up and down, over and over again, until Gerard is coming as well.

They lay quietly next to each other for a few moments, breathing heavily next to one another. Gerard’s clean hand moves over the covers until it’s up at Frank’s cheek, stroking the skin with his thumb. He simply gazes at Frank, his gaze warm, and his hand warmer.

Later, Frank stands at the steps of Way manor, seeing Gerard board the carriage. He can feel what he thinks to be Michael’s arm around his shoulder, but he can barely register it. Poppy is curled into one of her mother’s sides with Lottie at the other, and Frank can hear Poppy weeping quietly. Oh, how it is to be a small girl. Frank only wishes he could be in the same position as her.

The carriage begins to leave, and Gerard looks out the window, smiling sadly and waving the entire time the carriage travels down the pathway of Way Manor. Frank waves back.

After a while, each member of the Way family retreats back into the manor, and Frank stays on the steps, feeling a new sense of loneliness that he’s never felt before build up inside of him. He brings his hands up, twisting his engagement ring around his ring finger. He looks up, and sees that it’s early enough in the morning that the moon is still shadowed in the sky, visible through the pale blue of the morning. Eventually, the wind becomes biting and chilly, and Frank walks back up the stone stairs and into his home.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> epilogue !! c:

_Two years later_

Frank has always been a light sleeper, ever since he was a boy. It’s been both a blessing and a curse for him, really; on one hand, he’s most often punctual and rarely lets sleep keep him away from his duties, no matter how often he’d like to catch just a bit more shut eye. But on the other hand, he can hardly sleep through any sort of disturbance.

Now is no different.

There’s something pressed up against his back, warm and soft and sort of comforting, actually. But when Frank blinks himself awake, he notices it there, and is fairly sure that there was nothing or no one in the bed with him when he fell asleep. He wonders for a moment if it’s Gunner or Belle, but dismisses the idea quickly. No matter how much Frank loves his dogs, the poor dears are not allowed indoors, even at night. Kitty would have a fit if she found out they’d been in the house, anyway. Plus, he does not seem to hear the telltale huffs or snores of the dogs.

Or maybe it’s just Poppy, he thinks absently when he notices it. After all, Frank’s quarters _are_ closer to the girls’ than their parents’; if they had nightmares, it’d be easier for them to crawl up into bed with Frank than it would for them to go all the way to Michael and Alicia’s chambers. But they hardly did that anymore, especially after Lottie became less begrudging about letting her younger sister stay the night with her when she had nightmares.

But just in case it happens to actually _be_ Poppy, or even Lottie, Frank rolls over in bed sleepily, noticing the moonlight still gleaming through the gap in the thick curtains of his bedroom window. It must still be nighttime.

There’s a person lying next to him, staring at him with a wide, curious disposition. But it’s not just any person, it’s _Gerard_.

“I’m dreadfully sorry for waking you, my love,” he whispers to Frank when he rolls over and sees Gerard there. It feels like all of the air has been sucked out of his lungs. Gerard is all he can focus on, all of the sudden, all he can think about. “I would have spent the night in my own room, but I was practically dead on my feet when I arrived and your room was closer to the entrance. Plus, I don’t feel I would have been able to wait until the morning to see you.” He smiles at Frank, who lets his eyes scan his lover’s face for the first time in so, so long. He’s not changed much, all things considered. He’s still Frank’s sweet, strange, beautiful Gerard. Except for the beard. His Gerard had a _beard_. Frank can hardly believe it.

“Come here, you idiot,” Frank says fondly, scooting closer until he can wrap nearly his whole body around his love, who squeezes back with just as much joy and admiration. Frank nestles his head in the crook of Gerard’s neck, right where it intersects with his shoulder, a bare patch of skin there just perfectly exposed by the collar of his tunic. He smells different, Frank notices, but it’s only subtle. There’s an added hint of something sharp and earthy to his skin, now. Frank presses his lips onto the pale flesh, and just leaves them there, savoring the moment and the way Gerard sighs into his hair.

They pull away from one another just long enough to kiss, passionate and full of _love_. Frank knows it, has known it forever, and is almost precisely sure Gerard knows it too and reciprocates greatly, but he’s so hopelessly in love with the man that at times, the grief he felt over his lover’s departure became all-encompassing. But now he’s _here_ , in Frank’s arms, kissing Frank like he’s Gerard’s very life force. Right where he should be.

“I’ve missed you so,” Frank manages to mutter between kisses, ones that grow hotter and more intense by the second. Gerard moans something of a pleased hum into Frank’s mouth, making the shorter man all but vibrate with love, and a new emotion. _Lust_.

“I’ve missed you more than you could ever know, my dear.” The words, though spoken by Gerard himself, seem to snap him into some sort of deep, depressed trance. He pulls away from Frank’s hungry kisses, eliciting a displeased sort of sound from Frank. But he can’t stay focused on either his displeasure or the now-frustrating hardness of his cock, not with the way Gerard is staring at him.

“I looked to the moon each night, Frankie,” he whispers. There’s a certain sadness in his tone, one that Frank wants to kiss away. But he doesn’t, instead sitting back and listening intently to his love. “I talked to her, especially on the nights I missed you most, in the hopes that she, in all her divine beauty, would pass along a message to you. I have no faith that these messages were actually delivered, mind you, I’m not that gone yet,” he laughs, causing Frank to laugh with him, “But I hope you understand just how much I _truly did_ miss you. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do something like that again, not if you’re not there with me.”

Frank stares at Gerard with his mouth parted in shock just the smallest bit. He understands _completely_ how Gerard had felt, because he’d gone through the same exact thing. There were nights where he felt he almost couldn’t breathe, simply because he missed the other man so much. He too found himself talking to the moon more than one night, a habit most likely picked up from Gerard himself.

“But you’re here now, my love,” Frank says, causing Gerard to look him in the eye. “I will admit, those were most likely the hardest two years of my life,” Gerard gives him a guilty frown, “But as I said before you left, I will _never_ blame you for following what your heart tells you is right. I would never keep you here, simply because I missed you. And even then, we can put the blame and the guilt and the grief behind us, because we’re here, together again. Isn’t that something to be celebrated?”

Gerard looks nearly on the verge of tears, but being the strange man he is, still dives in and kisses Frank once more with all the hunger and passion of before. It’s a bit unexpected, but Frank _really_ isn’t complaining in the slightest.

“Yes, I do believe this most certainly _is_ something to be celebrated,” Gerard hums. “Shall I show you a proper celebration?” he asks, pulling away from Frank just long enough to ask the question, and receive an answer. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the best answer Frank can give is a short, excited nod.

It’s but a mere few moments later when one of Gerard’s hands is worming its way down Frank’s body; running over his night tunic, slipping its way under the shirt only to sliver up and tease Frank’s nipples, earning Gerard a rather explicit moan. He decides to disregard his hand all together and removes his mouth from Frank’s to pull off the man’s shirt and attach his mouth instead to the sensitive, pink buds. He flicks his tongue over them, sucking on them and biting gently when Frank pants out, “More, more.”

Frank threads his fingers through Gerard’s hair - it’s much longer than it had been, past his shoulders now - and a few moments later, he tugs Gerard up by his hair. Frank feels completely euphoric, and they haven’t even gotten to the best part of their evening yet. He hadn’t realized how much he missed this especially.

“Gee, please,” he moans, barely catching the satisfied smirk Gerard shoots him. He plays with Frank’s nipples just a few moments more, before he slips his hand down Frank’s soft midsection, and right into his undergarments. Frank can’t hold in the loud noise of pleasure his body pushes out of him as Gerard begins flicking his wrist up and down Frank’s member, slick with precome. To only make matters worse, or better, Frank supposes, Gerard dives down to suckle at his neck, right at the spot that pleases Frank the most. After all this time, he still hadn’t forgotten. The thought makes Frank happier than he would expect.

“Oh,” Gerard sighs, removing his mouth from the light purple bruise he’s made at the base of Frank’s throat. He licks over it a few times, assuring that he didn’t really hurt Frank. “I simply adore those beautiful noises you make. Why hold back, my love?”

Frank can barely stutter out a laugh, no less a response. “I don’t want to wake the girls, or the whole house,” he pants. Gerard hums in response, pushing Frank’s undergarments down. The cold air feels near-freezing on his member, but Gerard replaces his hand soon after, the warmth returning.

The tight, hot feel of Gerard’s strong grip around Frank is _very_ nice, and Frank most certainly isn’t complaining about anything that seems to be occurring - notably, the feeling of Gerard’s tongue running over his own in his mouth - but Frank wants, no, _needs_ more if he is to reach a climax. He gently pushes Gerard back so they’re face to face, and takes a spare moment to kiss off the troubled look Gerard shoots him when he pulls back.

“More,” Frank says. He doesn’t elaborate, doesn’t think he _can_ , but it’s alright, because he knows Gerard will figure it out.

“What do you want, Frankie? What do you want to do?” he asks, prompting Frank to explain further anyway. Frank never understood how Gerard could still be so talkative, even when it seems he’s coming apart just as much as Frank.

“Me, inside of you,” Frank sighs right as Gerard’s wrist flicks in a particularly erotic way, digging his thumb lightly into the slit of Frank’s head.

Gerard hums and pushes his hips forward, bucking them to get some relief. It’s then that Frank feels how truly _hard_ his lover is, and that spurs him into action, quickly pulling off Gerard’s own nightshirt, and pulling down his undergarments both in two quick, successive movements. Frank doesn’t miss the grunt of pleasure that comes from Gerard when he does.

Gerard’s own cock springs free and nudges up against the soft, round flesh of his belly, looking painfully hard and leaking with precome.

But Frank wastes no time, and leans over to one of the bedside tables to dig around for the little jar of lamp oil he always keeps in there. Finding it, he pulls it out quickly and dips a finger in, reaching down and pressing between Gerard’s legs, his finger sliding in easily. Gerard makes a surprised noise, not expecting it to happen so quickly. But Frank can hardly wait any longer; he feels he might release at any moment, and has wasted two years away from Gerard- he doesn’t want to waste any more time.

As soon as Frank stretches Gerard’s hole just enough for another finger, he slicks up his other fingers with the oil and enters a second along with the first. Gerard, ever as talkative and noisy, doesn’t hold back in letting out several loud moans of pleasure as Frank stretches him, and when Frank adds a third and final finger, he lets out an especially loud noise and has the good graces to clamp a hand over his mouth, giggling.

“I’ve taught you very well it seems, love,” he says down to Frank, who doesn’t respond and just gives Gerard a broad grin. “I’m ready, Frankie,” he pants out soon after, and Frank removes his fingers from inside of Gerard, wiping them onto the bed sheets. He shifts around so he can dump a bit of the lamp oil onto his cock, spilling some onto the bed. But really, neither him nor Gerard pay mind to it.

Frank sits up then, kneeling down in front of Gerard as he spreads his legs and wraps them around Frank’s waist. Frank only takes a moment to line himself up, before he inserts his cock into Gerard’s ring of muscle, moaning out in sync with his love as he feels the tight, hot heat of Gerard surround him. He makes sure to enter extra slowly, at least hoping that it’s both of their first times doing this in a while. But soon, he bottoms out and stays there, until Gerard is waving a hand and telling Frank to move. He begins to pump back and forth in a smooth rhythm, increasing the pace of his hips with each movement.

“So, so beautiful,” Frank says to Gerard, who simply smiles and moans in response.

Gerard, somewhere in the middle of it all, finds the strength and self control to sit up a bit more, leaning forward just enough so he can capture Frank’s mouth in another passionate kiss. He bites down on Frank’s lip gently and moans into his mouth at one point, letting Frank know that he’s found Gerard’s special spot. He stays in that position and hits it repeatedly, earning a series of moans from the man below him.

“I’m close, Frankie,” Gerard says once his mouth is off of Frank’s. Frank nods, and reaches down to stroke at Gerard’s cock, helping him along.

It’s only a few seconds later that Gerard moans, long and loud, and his cock spurts out come. The fluid covers Frank’s hand, creating a sticky, white mess all over both Frank and Gerard. Not long after that, Frank is doing exactly the same inside Gerard. He snaps his hips a few more times, riding out the last of the aftershocks, before he slips out. Come drips out of Gerard’s hole as soon as he does, but Gerard seems to pay no mind to it as he lies back down and tucks himself underneath the blankets, wrapping around Frank as soon as he joins Gerard under the covers. Frank groans, though it's not from pleasure.

“Gerard,” he mumbles out, “We’re still covered in come.”

“Pity,” says Gerard, nestling himself closer to Frank and burying his face into his hair. “We’ll just have to bathe in the morning. I’m sure the maids will understand the mess on the sheets well enough.”

Frank laughs and lets the conversation drop, more than content to just be pressed close to Gerard and wrapped around him, despite the cooling mess of come and sweat between the two of them. He feels too tired, his limbs too heavy and his brain too fuzzy and blissed out to argue, anyway. He nuzzles at Gerard’s bare chest, kissing softly wherever he can reach.

It feels like a blessing to be back in Gerard's arms, Frank thinks. He really didn’t realize how _good_ it felt to be so close, so intimate with someone he loves. Especially when that someone is Gerard. And now, he has Gerard for possibly the entirety of the foreseeable future. Frank doesn’t think that sounds like a bad future at all.

“You know,” Gerard whispers into Frank’s hair after a while. “I might have proposed to you, but we’ve never had a proper wedding ceremony, have we?”

Frank shakes his head the best he can, and looks up at Gerard. “I don’t think we can have a true, proper wedding, dear.”

“Well, no, of course not. But who says we have to even _have_ a wedding officially recognized by the church or the government, hm? It would make us no less married if we simply had a ceremony recognized by us, and our closest family and friends.”

Frank mulls it over, running a hand up and down Gerard’s back. “I suppose you’re right. But let’s talk about this more in the morning, yes?”

Gerard hums and buries himself back into Frank’s hair. “Absolutely,” he whispers into it.

A few minutes later, when Frank’s just about to drift off into blissful sleep, he hears Gerard mumble out in a tone as sleepy as Frank feels, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he whispers back. Gerard sighs happily, and it’s no less than a minute later that he drifts off into a peaceful sleep, Frank following soon behind.

+++

Gerard’s homecoming sparks an uproarious reaction the next morning, as Frank thinks it should. Apparently, his lover had conveniently forgotten to notify _anyone_ , not just Frank, that’d he’d be home so soon, so when the two of them go down for breakfast the next morning, Poppy immediately abandons her meal and leaps up from her chair to cling to her uncle, all the while Michael nearly chokes on his tea at the sight of his brother. When Frank asks Gerard later about why exactly he hadn’t notified Frank _or_ his own brother of his surprise arrival, Gerard simply shrugs and continues on eating, saying that it “Slipped his mind.” Frank has half a mind to bat him over the head for such a thing.

But he doesn’t, and instead turns his attention back to the story Poppy has been passionately telling the whole table, nearly climbing up on it until her mother perceives her movement and scolds her before she can even step foot on top of the wood.

“And _then_ ,” she enunciates in a squeaky tone, “The horse ran away from the stable. The end!”

Gerard is the only one to clap loudly, praising Poppy for her lively and inspiring way of storytelling. Poppy positively glows at the compliments, and shoves a fork full of eggs into her mouth.

“Poppy, dear, that story wasn’t- true, was it?” Alicia suddenly asks, worried.

“Of course not!” she cheers, and Frank can see the utter look of relief that washes over her mother’s face. “Uncle told it to me forever ago. I thought it was only appropriate I tell it again.”

Gerard hums and nods, folding his hands to rest his chin on them. “I did, didn’t I? I hardly remembered.”

“That memory of yours is going to get you killed one of these days,” Frank says, leaning over in his chair. Gerard snickers and turns to look at his fiancé.

“I don’t think a thing such as a memory can kill you, my dear,” he says, a certain hint of cockiness in his voice. Frank furrows his eyebrows at him, giving him a glare.

“You’re lucky I love you,” he mumbles out.

“Very lucky,” Gerard responds, grinning brightly, only to be interrupted by Poppy.

“Uncle?” she asks, diverting Gerard’s attention to her.

“Yes, Poppy dearest?”

“When are you and Mr. Frank to be wed?”

“Penelope!” both of her parents scold in shocked voices. Well, as shocked as Michael’s voice can be.

“It’s rude to ask when a couple is to be wed, didn’t you know that, Poppy? They are expected to tell you on their own time, and you are expected to wait,” Lottie says calmly, sipping from her tea.

Gerard leans over to Frank and whispers, “Since when has Lottie been allowed to drink tea?” To which Frank shrugs and says, “About a month after you left.”

Gerard nods quickly and sits up straight, righting himself and looking at Poppy calmly and lovingly. “We have no set time, Poppy. It’s something we still have to discuss,” he says, completely ignoring the scolding his siblings and niece had given her for the question, never one for conventional rules of society, if his engagement to Frank in the first place wasn’t something to go by.

“Oh,” she says dejectedly, slumping in her seat.

“Why?” Frank asks.

“I wanted to know when Lottie and I could start calling _you_ uncle too, Mr. Frank!”

The statement takes Frank aback, and when he looks over to Gerard for some sort of guidance as to how to answer, Gerard seems just as surprised. Which, truthfully, shocks Frank more. It takes a lot to truly surprise Gerard.

“Do you- _want_ to call me uncle, Poppy?” Frank finally asks, looking at the rambunctious girl with a shocked stare. Poppy nods excitedly, her dark curls bobbing with her head.

“Of course! You’re my favorite person ever, Mr. Frank, and surely you’d be my favorite uncle too,” she says gleefully, surprising Frank more.

“I take offense to that,” Gerard huffs playfully under his breath, nobody else but Frank seeming to catch it.

But Frank ignores it, turning his attention towards Lottie, who’s staring at him. And when Frank notices it, everyone at the table seems to now be staring at him. He gulps.

“Do _you_ want to call me uncle too, Lottie?” he asks.

Lottie thinks it over, tracing the rim of her teacup with a finger. She shrugs, finally, and nods. “I suppose I would.”

Frank blanches, not expecting the answer. He turns to Michael and Alicia finally, seeing the both of their attentions flickering between Frank and their girls.

“Would that be alright?” he asks them.

Neither of them respond for quite a while, looking at each other periodically and seemingly communicating in a language comprised of eyebrow movements that Frank doesn’t understand. He wonders absently if he and Gerard will ever reach the point of nonverbal communication, but shakes the thought away. There are much more pressing matters at hand, like the fact that he may or may not become an uncle within the next few minutes.

Alicia is the first to respond, shrugging in a way that Frank notes is strangely similar to the way her daughter had. “If the girls want to, then I’m not going to stop them.”

Michael glances between each face at the table one last time, before righting his glasses and looking at Frank.

“As long as you don't bring harm to my family, then you’re a welcome part of it,” he settles on finally, and Frank releases a sigh he didn’t know he’d been holding in. Even after all these years, Michael still intimidates him just the slightest bit.

Poppy wastes no time in getting up from her chair once more, running around to the other side of the table to hug him, causing him to let out a shocked noise, not expecting it. He hesitates, but wraps his arms around the girl.

 _Uncle Frank._ He likes the sound of it.

+++

A few hours later, the girls are outside running around and playing with Gunner and Belle, after their mother agreed that the day should be spent with their uncle, instead of cooped up inside with their lessons. Frank loves teaching more than nearly anything, but he can hardly agree more.

He’s sitting under the willow tree in the gardens, nestled up close to Gerard with his head on his lover’s shoulder. They had been reading a book together, but dropped it in the favor of watching the girls play with the dogs. For once, Lottie even seems to be _excited_ to be outside. It truly is a sight to behold.

“Is it wrong of me to want to go play with them?” Gerard asks, breaking the peaceful silence him and Frank had been sharing. Frank laughs and nudges his head into Gerard’s shoulder, disguising his smile.

“They _do_ look like they’re having quite a bit of fun,” he reasons, muttering the words into Gerard’s shoulder. He’s briefly afraid he won’t hear it, but Gerard hums in agreement and sinks further back onto the ground, Frank following suit, if only to keep his head on Gerard’s shoulder.

“Do you ever want children?”

It’s a sudden question, one that Frank hadn’t been expecting. He stays silent for a moment, not quite knowing how to answer.

“I’ve never- really- thought about it?” it’s a lie, but he doesn’t know what else to say. What if Gerard _does_ want children? How would he then react when Frank told him that he didn’t?

“It’s alright if you don’t, you know. I’m not really sure if I’d want children, if I’d even be a good parent in the first place. I can hardly take care of myself, how am I to take care of a child as well? I’m like a big child myself.”

Frank can’t help the involuntary laughter that escapes him, and the mere bright look on Gerard’s face is enough to convince Frank that, no matter the answer, Gerard wouldn’t be mad at him.

“Well, you _are_ very similar to a large child,” he says admiringly. “But, I don't think I want them either. I mean, it would be rather hard for us to have them, anyway, since, you know.” he gestures with the hand that isn’t tucked behind Gerard’s back, and earns a happy laugh from him.

“Adoption is always an answer,” Gerard reasons.

“I suppose it is.”

Gerard nudges Frank’s head with his shoulder just the tiniest bit, causing Frank to look up at him.

“We have all the time in the world to think about it, love,” he says gently, all the love and caring in the world simply in the tone of his voice, and Frank looks up at him. How had he fallen in love with such an amazing person? More importantly, how had such an amazing person fallen for him?

“Uncles! Look!” Poppy says, bounding over to them, their rapt attention now on her. She holds out her arm to them when she gets close enough, and inching up her forearm is a fat, green caterpillar.

“Poppy-” Frank says, only to be cut off by a gasp from Gerard. He sits up, causing Frank to sit up too, and gently takes Poppy’s arm in his hands, studying the caterpillar up close.

“He’s absolutely beautiful, Poppy,” Gerard gushes, watching the little bug as it makes its way onto the sleeve of Poppy’s dress. “Where did you find him?”

“Over by the carnations, Uncle. He was eating!”

“Well, then you saved those poor flowers from their untimely doom. Have you chosen a name for him yet?”

Poppy nods, and her hair unfurls from the loose attempt at a bun that Frank theorizes Alicia put it in before Poppy went outside, to prevent her hair from getting dirty. Knowing Poppy, though, her hair is bound to get dirty anyway, hair in bun or not. “I’m thinking of naming him Cornelius. Or Romeo, after the play Uncle Frank taught Lottie and I last week.”

“Ah, teaching them Shakespeare already, darling? You truly are an admirable educator.” Gerard beams down at Frank, who lets his head drop back onto Gerard’s shoulder, a bit embarrassed.

“I think I’m going to put him back, now,” Poppy says, noticing that the bug has already made his way to her neck. She grabs him, and puts him back into the palm of her hand.

“Tell him I wish him the safest departure,” Gerard says solemnly, Poppy following his lead and nodding stiffly. The two of them barely hold their composure for a minute longer, though, bursting into a fit of giggles. Frank can’t help but join along, the laughter contagious. Poppy bounds off again and both Frank and Gerard watch her go.

“You don’t think that was a poisonous caterpillar, do you?” Frank asks incredulously, and rolls his eyes when he feels Gerard shrug under him.

“I’m no expert in caterpillars, but Poppy _did_ seem to be rather alright,” he reasons, and really, Frank can’t protest. They fall into a lulled sense of quiet as Frank feels Gerard’s head fall gently onto his, his lover’s long hair tickling his cheek.

Frank sighs, running a hand idly up and down Gerard’s thigh. Gerard hears the noise and picks his head up off of Frank’s, looking down at him.

“Something wrong?”

Frank hums in question, turning to look at Gerard as well. He leans in, kissing away the perplexed look on his love’s face.

“No,” he says when he pulls away, staring up at Gerard’s wide, hazel eyes. Oh, how Frank missed those eyes. “Nothing’s amiss. I’m just…” He hesitates, “Content.”

“Content?” Gerard repeats, looking at Frank still confused, but a hint of fondness to his features.

And, yes, Frank really is content. Sitting here with his love, his _family_ , it feels almost unreal. A part of Frank always thought he’d simply end up with some woman, have a few children, and have an unfulfilling career, calling the hodgepodge of unhappiness his life. But this here, _this_ is Frank’s life. It feels like, somewhere along the way, all the pieces fell together. He hardly had to even try to find happiness, or a loving partner, or a welcoming family. He just ended up here, and he couldn’t be happier with the fact.

Looking up at Gerard, his fiance, the love of his _life_ , Frank feels all that unexpected happiness inside of him come to a head. He truly does love and care for the man, and feels that he always will, and to love and care for someone so much is probably the most fulfilling feeling to Frank. He truly adores Gerard, his strangely wonderful Gerard. When Frank looks at him, he can hardly remember how to breathe, no less a life before him. What a miserable life that must have been.

Poppy lets out a particularly loud squeal as Gunner kicks up a pile of mud onto her frock, and both Frank and Gerard’s attentions snap towards the scene. Luckily, it’s Poppy’s play dress, so Alicia shouldn’t be too mad at her dirtiness. Still, Lottie scolds her younger sister briefly, before Gunner kicks up another wad of mud onto her dress as well. And somehow, Lottie doesn’t react with anger at all, instead laughing brightly as her sister throws some mud at her, the two girls engaging in an all out mud war. Frank almost gets up to scold them and stop their game, but thinks twice of it, too peaceful in Gerard’s arms. At least they're using the knowledge they’ve learned about war in a proper manner, and as a teacher, Frank could not be prouder.

He looks back up at his beloved, and gives him a small, affectionate grin.

“Yes,” Frank says. “Content.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (fun fact: there was actually a very brief period of time where nipple & genital piercings were popular in victorian england so that's not completely historically innacurate)
> 
> anyway i hope you guys enjoyed this!! this has been my brainchild for a good few months, and i'm really happy with how it's turned out. it's the longest fic i've ever written, so i'm very proud of it.
> 
> i'm looking for beta readers for any other pieces i may or may not write in the future, so if anyone is interested, hmu at thecellabr8tion on instagram or oraghost on tumblr.
> 
> until next time - au revoir!


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